


Through Her Eyes

by ssweet_dispositionn



Category: Fifth Harmony (Band), camren
Genre: Completed, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-22
Updated: 2015-04-28
Packaged: 2018-03-19 03:08:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 30
Words: 90,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3594105
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ssweet_dispositionn/pseuds/ssweet_dispositionn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.<br/><br/>Lauren never planned a lot of things.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Girls and Raccoons

_Some luck lies in not getting_

_what you thought you wanted_

_but getting what you have, which_

_once you have got it you may be_

_smart enough to see is what you_

_would have wanted had you known._

~ Garrison Keillor

——-

 

Lauren had a raccoon problem.

 

Every night for the last week she’d heard the damned creature banging around in her front yard and every morning she’d found garbage scattered on the ground around her trashcan – banana peels and old magazines soggy in the morning dew. Lauren was not amused.

 

Nor were her neighbors.

 

“I’m really not asking much,” Mrs. Smith said with a disapproving frown. She was an old gossiping woman with a hooked nose and shifting eyes. She’d known Lauren’s grandmother but Mrs. Smith hadn’t liked her and she didn’t like Lauren, either. Lauren wasn’t sure that Mrs. Smith liked anyone, really, not even her own husband. Especially not her own husband. “I think the whole neighborhood would appreciate it if you would keep your trash inside your trashcan, Miss Jauregui.”

 

“Right, trash  _inside_  the trashcan, I keep forgetting.” Lauren gave her neighbor a large, faked grin. Mrs. Smith glared.

 

“Kids these days…” she grumbled, stomping off with her head held high. Lauren rolled her eyes. Fucking suburb with its fucking nosy neighbors.

 

She’d never wanted to live in a place like this; she’d lived in a nice, comfortable house in Miami, in the actual city, where no one bothered her before her grandmother had died. She’d left the house to her though and she couldn’t just leave it to rot, couldn’t sell it when the old woman had obviously thought her more suitable than her own parents to take care of the place. Besides, her often complaints about wanting to be independent had given her parents the perfect excuse to send her there. So Lauren stayed and watered the plants her grandmother had loved, fed the strays who had loved her.

 

It wasn’t the life she’d been planning on having.

 

Lauren couldn’t do much about nosy neighbors though, couldn’t do much about the too perfect streets or ugly SUVs and screaming kids. She couldn’t do much about the life she’d never planned to have and the grandmother she’d never wanted to lose.

 

The raccoon, though, Lauren could do something about the raccoon.

 

It took her three days. It seemed that whenever the damn thing came around Lauren was already in bed and too tired to care. On the third night though, Lauren was watching a horrible movie on TV when she heard the telltale scuffling and banging of aluminum in her front yard. She stood from the couch determinedly, jogging out her front door towards the trashcans, planning to scare the thing away with her superior brain size, decent muscle definition, and slight anger towards the cable company and its crappy programming.

 

“Hey!” Lauren yelled as she ran out towards the street and waved her arms in large, hopefully intimidating motions. “Get out of here! Shoo! Go through my neighbor’s trash instead!”

 

“But I like yours,” a voice responded from nowhere and Lauren stopped dead in her tracks, hands frozen comically above her head.

 

Raccoons were not supposed to talk. Lauren was really pretty sure of this.

 

“Guh?” Lauren blinked rapidly, trying to see through the darkness of night and smoggy air. She was a few yards away from the street and it was dark, the moon small, but squinting her eyes, Lauren could just make out the outlines of someone standing over her garbage can. They were about her height and slim, picking through Lauren’s trash like it was the bargain bin at the mall. “What the hell?”

 

“You have so many shiny things,” the voice continued. “Don’t you want them anymore?”

 

“Who the hell are you?” Lauren demanded, moving her arms uselessly by her sides. A raccoon she had planned for, had even Googled how to get rid of them. This? No, not so much.

 

“Camila,” the person,  _Camila_ , responded easily, pulling something out of Lauren’s trashcan and then tossing it aside casually.

 

“Camila,” Lauren repeated dumbly. “What the hell are you doing?”

 

Camila said nothing, unconcerned with Lauren’s presence, still digging through her trash.

 

There were a lot of homeless people in LA, it was an undeniable part of living there. Her grandmother had lived in a suburb, though, ten minutes out of LA. If this girl was homeless she was also lost because there was nothing here for her – houses cramped too close together with perfectly square front lawns. Lauren didn’t know why anyone would come here by choice.  _Lauren_  didn’t even want to be here.

 

“That’s great, really, fantastic,” Lauren muttered, shaking her head in disbelief. The girl continued to ignore her. “You mind getting the heck away from my house,  _Camila_?”

 

Camila stopped, raising her head to look at Lauren finally. Lauren couldn’t see her face in the darkness, though. Maybe it was best that way, maybe it didn’t matter.

 

“Your house?” Camila asked, tilting her head oddly. “You live here?”

 

She’d just come out the front door, hadn’t she? “Of course I-”

 

“In a trashcan?” Camila continued, sounding awed. “Really?”

 

“What? No, I-”

 

“Do you like it? I’ve never met anyone who lived in a trashcan before.” The girl sounded genuinely excited about it.

 

There was a crazy person on Lauren’s front lawn.

 

She really would have preferred the raccoon.

 

“Okay,” Lauren said, raising her hands in a sort of halting motion like she could slow things down that way, make sense of something that made no sense at all. “Okay, now listen.”

 

Camila cocked his head.

 

“I live here, here in this house, okay?” Lauren asked, pointing theatrically. “The house? That’s where I live.”

 

“Ohh,” Camila said, nodding. “Okay.”

 

“Good.” Lauren sighed. “Good, so, I live in this house, and this is my trashcan. See?”

 

“I do see, yes,” Camila answered, reaching into the trash to pull something else out, holding it in her hand this time, angling it into the moonlight, examining it carefully.

 

“Great, so, if you could not go through my trash like some sort of… something. That would be great, awesome, really.”

 

“Would it?” Camila asked, dropping the object she’d been examining into a plastic market bag by her feet. It was a light bulb, Lauren thought, a girl named Camila was stealing her broken light bulbs.

 

“It would,” Lauren said slowly, clearly. “…Please leave now.”

 

Luckily, the girl seemed to understand this, at least. She leaned down, picking up her bag and holding it closely to her chest. “Can I keep this?”

 

Lauren stared. “Keep…? Yeah, keep whatever you want, just, don’t go through my trash anymore, thanks, bye now.”

 

Camila took a step back obediently, disappearing into the darkness around her so quickly it was almost creepy. Lauren blinked slowly, staring down at her front lawn, once again covered in garbage.

 

“Well, shit.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Converted by the amazing:
> 
> http://iwill-look-after-you.tumblr.com/


	2. A Promise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.
> 
> "You have so many shiny things. Don’t you want them anymore?"

Lauren hated Mondays. She hated the sun shining and the birds chirping and the alarm clock ringing. She hated waking up and having breakfast and she even sort of hated coffee.

 

Actually, Lauren really hated coffee. Lauren hated making coffee and she hated serving coffee. Lauren hated her job. She was meant to be a musician, a rock star, not a fucking barista in some broken down cafe a block from a Starbucks.

 

Her boss made her wear an apron over her clothes and the customers always made faces at her variety of beanies. It was a crap job. Lauren was only working there until the rock star thing came through.

 

“I’d like an Ethiopia Sidamo,” said the woman in front of the counter, her mouth pinched at the corners with displeasure. Problem was, Lauren always got her customers before their first cup of coffee of the day.

 

“…We sell coffee here.”

 

“An Ethiopia Sidamo,” she repeated.

 

“Coffee, not third world countries. They’re different, you see?”

 

“They have it at Starbucks!”

 

Sometimes customers got lost. Lauren was happy to redirect them if it meant she could sit around listening to her iPod all day and getting paid for it. “Yeah, Starbucks is down the street on the left, can’t miss it.”

 

“They have a line!” the woman complained, as if the line at Starbucks was a personal affront to her. “I have to be at work. Why don’t they have more people working there? There’s always a line!”

 

“It’s not really my problem,” Lauren pointed out, tapping her fingers against the counter to the beat of some unknown song.

 

“Fine! I want the Gazebo Blend.”

 

“…Sure.” Lauren rolled her eyes, moving to make her an Espresso.

 

She wouldn’t be able to tell the difference, they never could.

 

The coffee was hot against her fingers through the Styrofoam cup, soothing in the strangely crisp air. It was cold for Los Angeles, the wind blowing hard enough that Lauren had almost lost the jacket over her arm twice on the short walk from her car to Cocoa’s Cafe. Lauren very specifically did not wonder if the girl who had been going through her trash last night had a jacket to wear or a place to stay. She didn’t care.

 

It wasn’t that cold, anyway.

 

When the woman huffed off with her Gazelle Blend, or whatever, a man stepped up to the counter. Two people was pretty much the morning rush at Cocoa’s. “Yeah, a French Roast Grande.”

 

“Large?”

 

“Grande.”

 

“I’m going to get you a large,” Lauren informed him, “because I assume this is what you are trying to order.”

 

The man frowned. Then he wrinkled his nose at Lauren’s oversized gray beanie.

 

——-

 

Lauren had never been the type to dwell on things. She wasn’t the type to worry when there was no reason to, when there was nothing she could do. It was useless and Lauren didn’t waste her time on useless stuff like that.

 

So Lauren didn’t think about Camila after she left. She didn’t have trouble falling asleep Sunday night, didn’t lay awake wondering if the girl had a place to stay or food to eat. Lauren didn’t wonder why she was going through trashcans, what she was looking for or if she’d found it. She didn’t stare at Cocoa’s dishwater gray walls all day and worry about the cold or possible rain. It was none of her business.

 

She would have forgotten all about Camila, she would have, except Camila never gave her the chance. When Lauren pulled into her driveway after work on Monday evening, Camila was already there, standing in front of her trashcan with an apple core in her hand, looking mesmerized.

 

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Lauren muttered, slamming the car door behind her.

 

It wasn’t even six o’clock yet; the sun had barely started to lower. Lauren could see her visitor clearly for the first time.

 

Camila was young, younger than Lauren would have expected, younger than her own nineteen years old, definitely. She was about her height, maybe a bit shorter and slim, interestingly dressed with a black bow on her head. Camila would have stood out in the boring Los Angeles suburb even if she wasn’t going through someone’s trash.

 

Which she was, of course.

 

“Hey!” Lauren called, starting towards her. “Hey, what the hell?”

 

Camila looked up from the trashcan immediately, her face lighting up when their eyes met like Lauren was an old friend. “Good morning!”

 

Lauren stopped a few feet away from her, glancing up at the darkening sky, just to check. Yep, still evening. “Okay, no. Just. No.”

 

Camila blinked, looking genuinely confused. “No?”

 

“No,” Lauren repeated. “It’s not… freaking… what are you  _wearing_?”

 

Lauren was obviously mistaken the first night; Camila actually was a raccoon. Considering her interesting combination of black and white clothing.

 

Or a girl with a very unique style. And a bow.

 

Or a crazy person. Lauren was still leaning towards ‘crazy person.’

 

“Clothing?” Camila tried, frowning oddly.

 

Camila’s clothing was weird as all hell though, and were those  _suspenders_? Black suspenders with  _little white bows_  on them?

 

“Yeah… but….” It wasn’t even worth it, it really wasn’t.

 

Camila’s chosen style of clothing was really none of Lauren’s business anyway. 

 

Camila sighed, shaking her head. “I thought we went over this already? Go away, stop going through my trash.”

 

“Go… away?” Camila asked slowly, tilting her head. “Away where? Now? Can I just stay? I would rather stay, I think.”

 

“See, no, remember what I said last night?”

 

“Yes. Have you forgotten? I could repeat it for you!” Camila offered, all bright eyes and honest concern. “You told me to ‘shoe,’ which I do not understand but I have three of them so that’s taken care of. Then you suggested I go through your neighbor’s trash – they have nothing of interest, I’m afraid – then you said-”

 

“You went through my neighbor’s trash?” Lauren echoed, eyes widening.

 

Camila smiled brightly, waving, apple core still in hand, towards the Smith’s house.

 

“No, really?” Lauren asked, impressed despite herself. “Please tell me you tossed the bitch’s garbage all across her front lawn. Oh, please?”

 

Camila shrugged, sticking her free hand back into Lauren’s trashcan. “Nothing of interest,” she repeated. Lauren was going to take that as a ‘yes,’ though. Mrs. Smith deserved it, too.

 

“And I do - have something of interest?” She asked, only slightly curious why she had been chosen by the crazy girl as trash-provider, or whatever it was.

 

“Lots of shiny things, yes. Can I keep this?” Camila was waving something new in front of Lauren’s face – the blade of a cheap kitchen knife that had broken off at the handle.

 

“No!” Lauren cried, reaching forward automatically to grab the blade from Camila’s hand, her fingers meeting too dry skin. And crap, Lauren was going to have to start being careful about what she threw away if Camila kept coming back; she could hurt herself or something. “Just, go through Mrs. Smith’s trash instead. I’m sure she’ll have something, er,  _shiny_ , tonight.”

 

“No, I don’t think so,” Camila responded easily, eyes still glued to the blade in Lauren’s hand.

 

“Why not?”

 

“She has nothing shiny to throw away, of course.”

 

How hard could it be to find a broken light bulb in someone else’s trash? Why only  _Lauren’s_ trash? “You really need to stop going through my trash, okay?”

 

“No?” Camila said, maybe asked. Wasn’t much of a question, though.

 

Lauren frowned. “No?” She really didn’t need Camila making a huge mess for Mrs. Smith to nag her about every morning. Like the woman didn’t have enough to bitch about.

 

 _Miss Jauregui, the cat food is attracting more strays to the neighborhood. Miss Jauregui, your music is much too loud! Miss Jauregui, that car is hardly green. Haven_ _’_ _t you heard of the new hybrids? Miss Jauregui, your trash-_

 

“No,” Camila repeated, her hand visibly tightening around the trash in her hand. “If you throw it away, you do not want it. If you don’t want it, why can’t I have it?”

 

Which, was sort of a good point, really.

 

Lauren frowned, shaking her head in annoyance. “What are you even going to do with that?” She asked, gesturing.

 

Camila smiled, looking down at the apple core in her hand like it was, well, like it was something besides garbage.

 

“I’m going to grow a tree,” she said, eyes light with childish excitement. “An apple tree.”

 

“Well, yeah, I don’t think you’re going to be able to get any other kind of tree out of apple seeds.” Lauren was pretty sure Camila wasn’t going to be able to get an apple tree to grow either, she just didn’t want to crush the hopes and dreams of the young and probably certifiably insane girl.

 

“It’s good I only want an apple tree, then,” Camila agreed sensibly.

 

“Great, yeah.” Lauren sighed. “So, you have your apple seeds. Why don’t you, you know, go plant them. Somewhere far away from me. And then just, don’t come back, okay?”

 

So maybe Lauren was kind of a jerk. People had certainly called her that back in school, in much more creative ways and colorful language, too. Maybe they were right. She still didn’t want some weird kid picking through her garbage, making a mess and probably hurting herself on sharp edges.

 

She just wanted Camila to go away.

 

Even if it was cold.

 

“You have a jacket, right?” Lauren asked out of the blue. Camila looked like she might actually answer though, so Lauren continued immediately. “No, wait, don’t tell me, I don’t care.”

 

Camila snapped her mouth shut, lips smacking together audibly, and then just sort of stared.

 

Obviously Camila’s weird was starting to rub off on Lauren.

 

“Okay.” Lauren frowned, staring down at the mess Camila was making of her front lawn. “Okay, let me make you a deal.”

 

“A deal?” Camila repeated, looking intrigued.

 

“Yeah, I do something for you, you do something for me, right?”

 

Camila frowned, biting her lip and glancing at Lauren anxiously. “Do you want it back?”

 

“What? The- no, Camila, I don’t want the apple core.” Lauren said, rolling her eyes. “What I want is for you to stop going through my trash… but I’m not going to get that, am I?”

 

Camila just smiled brightly, unconcerned.

 

“That’s what I thought. So, fine, you can go through my trash, but you have to pick up after yourself,” Lauren said, gesturing towards a banana peel resting innocently on the sidewalk. Lauren didn’t know how it had gotten there, she didn’t even  _like_  bananas. “Don’t litter, it’s bad for sea life or some crap. Mostly it’s bad for Mrs. Smith’s continued likelihood of survival.”

 

“Whales,” Camila told her. “Whales and dolphins and mermaids.”

 

“Yeah, Mrs. Smith is definitely in the ‘whale’ category, though,” Lauren mused.

 

Camila frowned. Perhaps she was trying to imagine Mrs. Smith with fins and a blowhole. It was a terrifying thought, Lauren had to admit.

 

“So, deal?” Lauren asked. “Clean up this mess, go plant your tree, okay?”

 

Camila nodded. “And tomorrow I will come back.”

 

A warning or a promise, Lauren didn’t know.


	3. Bugs That Bug

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.

Lauren had a plan. It was a brilliant plan.

 

She may have come up with it at three in the morning, lying in bed staring at the stark white ceiling with tired eyes, but still, it was brilliant.

 

In Lauren’s old house, her parents’ house, there had been cockroaches. They skittered around on the kitchen floor as Lauren lay awake at night. Her father would never do anything about them because he never really cared about anything, so Lauren figured she’d just deal with them herself. One night Lauren was laying in wait with a can of bug spray, poised and ready, listening for the sound of hard little bodies crawling across the tile.

 

The problem was, when Lauren flipped on the light so she could see the vermin she was planning on killing, well, they all ran away. They were afraid of the light.

 

Camila, Lauren figured, was sort of like a cockroach.

 

She only came around during the night, made a mess of Lauren’s trash, wouldn’t go away no matter how much Lauren glared. So, Lauren thought, maybe the light would scare Camila away, too.

 

On Tuesday morning Lauren called in sick to work –  _“_ _Lauren! You have to come it! Who will cover your shift?_ _”_ _“_ _Who needs to cover it? Just put up a big sign with the directions to Starbucks on it, it_ _’_ _s all I do all day anyways._ _”_  – and went someplace she had never been before.

 

Home Depot.

 

The store was huge – isle upon isle, more than twice Lauren’s height, floors of hard concrete, bright orange shopping carts.

 

“Can I help you?” someone asked, and Lauren turned around to find a guy in an orange apron watching her with flirty eyes. There was a pin clipped to it proudly proclaiming his name as ‘John.’

 

“There’s a girl that goes through my trash,” said Lauren.

 

John blinked. “Okay.”

 

“It’s a problem.”

 

“Um…” The guy was looking over his shoulder nervously, all the flirty attitude gone. Lauren was sort of gratified to be the crazy customer for once.

 

“But I have a plan,” Lauren assured him, a little crazed. “A brilliant plan.”

 

John did not look reassured.

 

“I want a light,” Lauren explained, since John didn’t look like he would be willing to help for very much longer. “One of those ones that turns on when you walk by it.”

 

“…Isle twenty-three,” John said, and then edged away very quickly, narrowly missing walking into a burly man’s shopping cart.

 

Lauren spent the better part of the day installing the light over the garage door. She hit her thumb with the hammer twice and narrowly missed dropping it on her boot. It was a perilous job. Lauren was never going to be a handyman…handy-woman… whatever.

 

But that was fine, because she was going to be a rock star, anyway.

 

When the light was finally installed, the sun was already going down, so Lauren went back inside to wait and watch by the window.

 

——-

 

When Camila showed up that night and the light snapped on, she laughed and clapped her hands together gleefully.

 

Apparently it was much easier to find the shiny things in Lauren’s trash with the extra illumination.

 

Perhaps ‘brilliant’ was not the word.

 

——-

 

Every night for the next two weeks Camila showed up to go through Lauren’s trash.

 

Lauren watched her from behind the screen door, through thick glass windows. For eleven days Camila picked through the trashcan with fascination and Lauren watched, wondered. Camila held to their deal, never left any garbage on the ground anymore. On the twelfth day Lauren shrugged her shoulders and stopped watching.

 

On the twelfth day, Camila rang her doorbell.

 

It was well past midnight; Lauren was sitting on the couch sipping soda and watching silly infomercials, not thinking of anything in particular. The scuffling noises in her front yard that came with Camila’s presence had stopped at least an hour ago.

 

When she heard the doorbell ring, Lauren sputtered and promptly dropped her soda.

 

It wasn’t that it was a particularly loud or obnoxious sound or that Lauren was an unusually jumpy person. Hearing the familiar chiming of bells though, Lauren couldn’t honestly say she remembered the last time someone had rang her doorbell or who that person would have been.

 

“Crap…” Lauren muttered, kicking at the now empty soda can with a socked foot. The doorbell rang a second time. Then a third. Then a forth. “Hold on! Freaking hell…”

 

Lauren left the soda to soak into the carpet, walking quickly towards the door and her impatient visitor, who was now ringing the doorbell in quick succession, filling Lauren’s head with too loud bells.

 

She flung the door open, started to ask “Who the hell-” and then, of course. Of course, Camila.

 

Camila, in fingerless gloves that looked like they were made for children and a pink t-shirt so bright it hurt Lauren’s eyes to look at. Camila, with large, guileless eyes and a bright smile. Camila,  _who was still ringing her doorbell._

 

“Stop!” Lauren snapped, batting Camila’s hand away from the polished metal button that she was now simply holding down, producing a harsh screeching noise. “What’s the matter with you?” Lauren asked, annoyed.

 

Camila just shrugged. “People ask that a lot,” she informed Lauren helpfully. Lauren couldn’t say she was particularly surprised.

 

“Yeah, I bet they do. What the hell are you doing?”

 

Camila frowned, eyebrows squished together ridiculously. “I didn’t see you.”

 

“See me?” Lauren repeated, mind blank.

 

Camila nodded encouragingly. “See you, yes. I didn’t see you and you didn’t see me.” She waved her hands around uselessly, as if to better explain her point. Lauren wasn’t entirely sure Camila  _had_  a point.

 

“Right. I get it. There was no seeing going on.” Lauren nodded, as if that made any sense at all, and Camila nodded along with her, bobbing her head a bit too wildly, making her hair flutter. “But you see me now, right? With your eyes. And I see you. So-”

 

“But you didn’t,” Camila said, and Lauren was pretty sure she was whining, actually. “You didn’t come to see me.”

 

“Come to- Oh.”  _Oh._

 

Camila frowned accusingly.

 

“Well, I’m busy,” Lauren explained a little helplessly. She felt the ‘watching infomercials’ was probably better left unsaid. “And you’re a lot less trouble now that you pick up after yourself, anyway.”

 

“If I am more trouble, you will come to see me?”

 

“No!” Lauren denied immediately. It was the last thing she needed, and anyway, “What do you want me to watch you for? You can have what you want out of the trash, I don’t care.” Which wasn’t entirely true, but still.

 

“I want,” started Camila, but never quite finished the thought. She blinked blankly at Lauren, and then glanced over at the doorbell again, looking a bit too interested in its shiny surface for Lauren’s comfort.

 

“Were you dropped on the head as a child or something?” Lauren asked grumpily.

 

Camila frowned thoughtfully. “I don’t remember,” she said after a long moment. Lauren rolled her eyes.

 

“Yeah, well, you wouldn’t, would you?”

 

“No?” Camila asked, and then reached haltingly for the silver surface of the doorbell again.

 

Lauren swatted her hand away. “No.”

 

Camila frowned, looking oddly crushed.

 

“Don’t-” Lauren sighed. “I don’t know what you want from me.”

 

“No,” Camila said, reaching out again. She didn’t reach for the doorbell this time, though. Warm fingertips met Lauren’s cheek, the fraying fabric of Camila’s too small gloves soft against her skin. Lauren blinked down at the brightly colored fingernails, surprised. She couldn’t make herself step back, couldn’t make herself pull away. “No, you don’t see. Your eyes are green stars but you don’t see at all.” Camila said, eyes soft in the light. Lauren would have blushed but she was mainly confused at Camila’s next words.“I’ll show you, though.”

 

“Show me?” Lauren asked, but Camila was pulling her hand away, stepping back. Lauren had to fight herself not to follow the touch. “Show me what?”

 

“You’ll see,” Camila promised.

 

Lauren would have asked  _what_  she was supposed to see, exactly, but Camila was already slipping away into the night with silent footsteps.

 

After that, Lauren always sat in her family room (no family who cared to sit in it, but a family room) and waited for Camila to come. Some nights she just watched through the large window, other nights she went outside and let Camila chatter away at her. Mostly she didn’t quite understand what Camila was trying to say, or if she was really trying to say anything at all, but Camila didn’t seem to mind.

 

As vermin went, Lauren supposed she could do worse.


	4. Sunrise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

When Lauren moved in, there was cat food in the kitchen cupboard, a bag so large and heavy, Lauren wondered how her grandmother had managed to carry it into the house on her own. It sat on the bottom shelf, mocking her.  _This is what you inherited, a house and a gravestone, nosy neighbors and a bunch of stray cats._

 

She kicked the bag angrily and walked away as quickly as she could without feeling like she was running from cat kibble.

 

The strays came anyway. Six or seven of them every day, some old and fragile, some young and playful,  _a family,_  Lauren didn’t think. They sat at her grandmother’s back door –  _her_ back door – not meowing but staring, eyes burning holes into the knotty wood. Lauren left them to it.

 

They kept coming back. Every morning for the first week Lauren lived in the too big, too silent house, the cats sat on the back porch, waiting.

 

“She’s dead!” Lauren had yelled at the end of the week. “Don’t you know she’s dead? She’s gone and you’re alone! Go away!” She slammed the door, left the cats staring, just like they always did.

 

She made breakfast on her stove but didn’t eat it. An hour later Lauren finally looked out the kitchen window to the porch, and of course, the cats were still there.

 

So Lauren fed them, that day and the one after, for weeks and months and then a year. When the first bag of cat food ran out, Lauren bought another, and she just kept feeding them.

 

She wasn’t an animal person, she didn’t try to touch them and they didn’t approach her. One cat, though, Lauren noticed. It was her eyes – Lauren was pretty sure the cat was a girl, no boy ever had such knowing eyes – they burned into her skin, watching, waiting, knowing. What she knew, Lauren wasn’t sure. Maybe just where to find free food or friendly humans, maybe where the fattest rats of the city were. Maybe more. She wasn’t telling.

  

She started calling her Cat. It wasn’t like she was claiming her or making her hers, she just needed something to call her.

 

Cat came every day.

——-

  

For weeks Camila was like a dream. Ethereal in the light, unreal, existent only in darkness, like one of the stars she seemed to like talking about so much as she dug through Lauren’s trash gleefully and Lauren stood by, rapt.

  

For weeks Camila existed only in a certain place and only at a certain time. For weeks Lauren was dreaming, and then suddenly she wasn’t anymore.

  

It was a Monday afternoon, Cocoa’s was empty and Lauren was taking the trash out to the alley behind the small coffee shop because she was a kind and helpful employee. That, and it was starting to smell and Lauren had lost the coin toss to Normani, who was the only other person working that day, so.

  

The alley was a large one Cocoa’s shared with several other stores around them, so Lauren wasn’t all that surprised when, as she tossed the trash bag into their dumpster, she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. She was, however, slightly startled when she turned her head to see that the movement had come from a familiar figure, a little paler in the broad daylight and brown hair, leaning over the side of the adjacent furniture store’s dumpster and digging through its contents happily.

 Camila was dumpster diving.

  

Of course Camila was dumpster diving.

  

“Camila?” Lauren asked, incredulous. Camila looked up, smiling brightly and not looking at all surprised.

 

“Hello!” She smiled, the expression even brighter than usual in the midday light.

 

Lauren stared. “You… what are you doing here? How did you even…” Lauren couldn’t remember ever mentioning to Camila where she worked. Apparently she hadn’t had to.

  

“You wouldn’t believe the things people throw away,” Camila told her easily, ignoring the question and continuing to dig through the large green dumpster. Then she frowned. “Well, I guess you would.”

  

Lauren felt a vague sense of shame and she wasn’t even sure why.

 

“You see this?” Camila asked, moving something around above her head so erratically that actually, no, Lauren couldn’t see it. “This is a perfectly good… a perfectly good… well, whatever it is, it’s perfectly good.” Camila frowned at the thing thoughtfully, holding it still long enough for Lauren to actually recognize it now. It looked like a lamp shade. Lauren was sort of worried Camila was going to add a bow and turn it into some sort of fashion statement.

  

“You’re going to keep it?” Lauren asked, wondering what use Camila could possibly have for a broken lamp shade. Unless she happened to have a lamp without a shade, of course.

 

“Of course!” Camila cried, looking scandalized. “It’s perfectly good.”

  

Lauren snorted. “So you’ve said.”

 

“Have I? Well, I’m right.” Camila dropped the lamp shade down by her feet where there was a pile of what Lauren assumed were her other treasures. Namely, foam peanuts and a large roll of bubble wrap.

 

“I’m sure,” Lauren agreed. She thought about asking what Camila was doing in the alley behind her work, but, well, she was dumpster diving, what else? And she thought about asking how Camila had found the place to begin with, but she was Camila, and any answer would undoubtedly just promote more questions.

 

“Hey!” A voice snapped loudly from behind her. Lauren turned to see Normani standing in the open door frame, arms crossed and eyes small. “You can’t just leave me with the customers, Lauren!”

 

Lauren raised an eyebrow. “Customers?”

 

“Well, custom _er_. But she actually wanted a coffee, and I had to make it for her. And it was your turn!” It was always Lauren’s turn.

 

“Camila-” Lauren started to defend, but when she turned around to point an accusing finger at the other, Camila wasn’t there.

 

“Who?” asked Normani.

 

Lauren sighed.

 

——-

  

Once Lauren had seen Camila in the light of day she started to see her everywhere. She was at the gas station making eyes at the candy and at the market knocking over the canned goods display and at the park sitting on a bench and staring up at the sky like it had something to offer besides dark clouds and unlikely rain.

  

“You’re following me,” Lauren accused the fourth time she saw Camila away from her house in as many days. “This is the only possible explanation for how you suddenly appear to be _everywhere._ ”

  

“Is it?” Camila asked, still staring into the sprawling sky.

 

“Yes, yes it is. Stop it.”

 

“Stop what?” Camila didn’t seem all that invested in the conversation.

  

“What did I just say?” Lauren demanded. “I said ‘stop following me.’”

  

“Did you?”

  

“Yes!” Lauren snapped, glaring down at her. “You are the most frustrating person, do you know that?”

 

“No?” Camila responded, tilting her head farther back towards the clouds, baring her throat to the world. The whole broken fucked up world that no one should ever bare their throat to, especially not someone like Camila.

 

“What are you looking at?” Lauren asked, though she wasn’t sure why. She was only at the park to get away from the suffocating walls of her grandmother’s home, and really, socializing with Camila was probably only encouraging her.

 

Lauren should stop. Really.

 

“The storm,” Camila responded easily, head still tilted. It looked dizzying.

  

Lauren sat down beside her.

 

“The clouds?” Lauren asked.

  

“No, the storm.”

 

“There’s no storm, Camila,” Lauren said, glancing up at the sky as well. “It’s probably not even going to rain. We’re in LA, you know?”

 

“I know,” Camila said and Lauren chuckled.

 

“You’re not so good with hypothetical, huh?”

  

“No?”

  

“No.”

 

“Yes?” Camila tried, an odd smile spread across her lips.

 

Lauren rolled her eyes. “You are so strange.”

 

“Yes.”

 

Lauren sighed, leaning her head back to watch the clouds pass by.

  

——-

  

It did rain.

  

That night it rained like it hadn’t all year, drenching everything in slick, freezing cold water. Fat water drops came in through the open windows and there was a leak in the roof of the living room. There was already a stain on the carpet where the water was dripping though, so Lauren just set out a pot and let it be. If her grandmother hadn’t cared enough to have it fixed, then Lauren didn’t either.

  

She wondered if her grandmother’s plants would drown, though. She wondered if her strays would get sick. She wondered if Camila was okay.

 

She didn’t know  _why_ she wondered if Camila was okay. Lauren didn’t get attached. If she had one personality trait she was proud of, that was it. She didn’t get attached and she didn’t care if you left or if you stayed. Mostly because everyone was always leaving in Lauren’s experience, so it was a convenient trait to have.

 

Lauren didn’t know why this didn’t seem to apply to Camila. She didn’t know why she wondered if Camila had someplace dry to sleep, didn’t know why she wondered if Camila had something warm to wear.

  

She did wonder, though. She wondered if Camila was homeless, despite being relatively clean most of the time. She wondered if she had a family, if someone was taking care of her, if she was capable of taking care of herself. Lauren wondered, if Camila had all those things, a home and a family and a life, why she would be going through dumpsters and trash cans, taking light bulbs and lamp shades. Lauren wondered, if Camila had all those things, why the light was on in her front yard.

  

“Oh,  _hell no_ ,” Lauren cursed, standing by the large window in the family room and staring into a darkness that was not quite as dark as it had been moments ago.

 

If was after sunset and Camila always showed up to go through Lauren’s trash at night, but it was raining, and Camila, she had to know to stay inside, didn’t she?

  

Frowning fiercely, Lauren moved to open her front door, stood on the cold cement of the porch, rain pounding to the ground around her. “Camila?” She tried to yell over the pounding of the rain, the storm. She could hardly hear her own voice, though.

  

Sighing, Lauren stepped out into the rain.

  

It  _was_ Camila. Of course it was. She was standing in front of the open trash can as always, head bowed and hair wetted down against her skin.

 

“Hey,” Lauren tried to call over the rain. Camila didn’t hear or didn’t care, just kept digging through Lauren’s trash. Lauren stepped closer, reaching a hand out to grab her arm. Camila looked up through soaking hair, cold and pathetic looking.

 

She wasn’t wearing a jacket or even long sleeves, Lauren’s fingers curled around cold flesh.

 

“Ah, hell,” Lauren muttered, and then she was pulling Camila through the rain towards her front door.

  

Lauren had lived in her grandmother’s house for almost a year. When Camila stepped over the threshold in soggy shoes, Lauren realized she had never actually had a guest over. She didn’t have much in the way of friends anymore, hadn’t since her high school buddies went to college and Lauren moved to LA, took a crap job and her grandmother’s house and played her music until the neighbors, specially Mrs. Smith, started to complain.

  

It was fine that way, and before her grandmother’s death, she’d had gone out and invited her dates to her house, even though it was never serious because Lauren just wasn’t good at relationships. After moving, well, it was her grandmother’s house. In ten years Lauren would probably still be living there, watering dead plants and feeding ragged strays, but it would still be her grandmother’s house. Lauren couldn’t bring herself to bring a nameless fling into the same rooms her grandmother had sat, reading stories and cooking meals. Smiling and singing and laughing and dying.

  

“Oh.” Camila was murmuring, wide eyed. “It’s big.”

  

“Yeah,” Lauren agreed, releasing Camila’s arm immediately. The house was big and hollow, walls bleached of any warmth they once had, furniture sparse. “My grandmother left it to me. Come on, you’re dripping.”

  

“She left it?” Camila asked, staring up at the ceiling like she was in the Sistine Chapel. Camila was always looking up though, Lauren thought, at the treetops and the sky and the stars. “Why did she leave?”

 

“I don’t…” Lauren frowned, unsure. “I don’t know.”

 

“Will she be back soon?” Camila asked, rubbernecking at the blank white walls as Lauren ushered her down the hallway.

  

Lauren laughed harshly. “No. No, she won’t.” They stopped at the hall closet and Camila nearly ran into her as Lauren collected towels, shoving them into Camila’s arms. “There’s a bathroom through there,” she said, gesturing vaguely. “Go dry off.”

  

Camila blinked at her slowly, long hair dripping water onto the carpet.

  

“You’re soaked. You can’t be out in the rain like that,” Lauren bitched.

  

Camila shrugged. “I can, though,” she disagreed, eyeing the drywall with curiosity.

 

“Camila,” Lauren said, painfully slowly, like maybe if she enunciated her words better Camila would understand. “Camila, it’s raining.”

  

“Yes.” Camila nodded. At least they could agree on the weather.

  

The carpet below Camila’s feet was beginning to turn dark with moisture. Sighing, Lauren reached to grab one of the towels from her loose grip and began to pat Camila’s hair dry herself.

  

“Aren’t you cold?” Lauren asked, trying not to pull too harshly at the water logged strands.

  

“Elvis is cold,” Camila told her, which wasn’t really an answer.

  

“Friend of yours?” Lauren wondered if Camila had mentioned the name over the last few weeks. It wasn’t that she didn’t listen when Camila talked, it was just that she didn’t always understand.

 

“Of course!”

 

Lauren nodded, dabbing at the water running down Camila’s cheeks. “Does, um, Elvis need a jacket?” 

 

“He’s using mine.” Camila assured.

  

Lauren frowned. “You need a jacket, then?”

  

“Elvis is using mine,” Camila repeated with disinterest.

  

“Okay.” Lauren said easily enough, pulling the wet towel away from Camila’s face. “I’ve got a purple sweatshirt I don’t wear.”

 

Camila blinked, changing her focus to eye Lauren with interest, now. “I like purple,” she said cautiously, fluttering the last water droplets out of her eyelashes.

 

Lauren snorted. “Of course you do.”

 

As it went, Lauren didn’t have any clothes nearly colorful enough for Camila’s tastes. Except the hoodie, of course. The purple hoodie was clutched possessively to Camila’s chest the moment Lauren pulled it out of the deepest, darkest regions of her closet.

 

“Yeah, that’s yours.” Lauren assured, because Camila’s fingers were curled so tightly around the fabric that they were white and bloodless, her eyes wide.

 

“Yours,” Camila repeated.

 

“No, it’s-” Lauren started to correct, and then just shook her head. “Never mind.”

 

Camila’s fingers curled impossibly tighter around the hoodie.

 

“So,” Lauren said, shifting awkwardly and for the first time wondering what on earth this girl was doing in her house, why she’d let her in and if it was fair to make a big deal of drying her off and then send her back out into the rain again. Probably not. “So… How are you at video games?”

 

Pretty terrible, it turned out. Camila and Lauren sat together on the living room floor, Camila tapping at the brightly colored buttons of her controller happily and laughing when the little man on the screen moved and Lauren mostly doing complicated attacks and combos that never quite hit her.

 

Camila’s laugh, Lauren thought, was actually sort of nice.


	5. Lost and Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

The thing was, Lauren was still pretty sure she wanted Camila to go away. No one wanted someone going through their trash at night. It was an invasion of privacy and it was just sort of gross. Camila was strange and insanely frustrating to talk to. She dressed weird and wore weird bows, and she looked at Lauren weird and she made Lauren feel weird. So, yes, Lauren was pretty sure she just wanted Camila to go away.

 

Until Camila  _did_  go away, of course, and then Lauren just wanted her to come back now, please.

 

Camila disappeared on a Tuesday night. Or, well, she’d been there on Monday night, digging through Lauren’s trash as usual, wearing the purple hoodie she hadn’t taken off since Lauren had given it to her and chattering on about Elvis’s whiskers. (Lauren had suggested getting a disposable razor if her friend wanted to shave but Camila had just looked at her oddly.)

 

So, Camila was there Monday, just like she had been every night for almost the last month. She’d walked off into the night with her plastic bag full of trash and Lauren hadn’t watched her go. Camila would be back the next day, she figured, because Camila always was.

 

Camila wasn’t back the next day, though. Lauren sat in the family room for hours, staring out into the darkness, waiting. When the old grandfather clock chimed four times Lauren decided that perhaps Camila was already outside and Lauren just hadn’t seen her. She stepped out her front door to look, the garage light turning on as she passed it and illuminating the yard, but Camila wasn’t there. Lauren sat down on the front porch to wait. She waited there for three hours, jerking her arm every ten minutes so the motion sensor would keep the light on. Camila never came and at seven Lauren had to get ready for work.

 

Lauren didn’t see Camila that day or the next.

 

It wasn’t fair for Camila to just leave like that. To insert herself into Lauren’s life and Lauren’s head and maybe Lauren’s heart too and then just take it all away, take herself away. It wasn’t fair at all, and Lauren was going to have to find Camila so she could tell her so.

 

Problem was, Lauren didn’t know where to look, didn’t even know where to start. Camila was always just showing up where Lauren was. Lauren had never thought she’d have to find Camila. She’d never thought she’d  _want_  to.

 

When Lauren hadn’t seen Camila in three days, she skipped work and went looking. She started on foot, went to the park where she’d seen Camila staring up at the sky and the minimart where she’d seen Camila eating a chocolate bar she most likely hadn’t paid for, but Camila wasn’t at either of those places. Once Lauren had made her way back home she decided the operation would have to be on a bigger scale and started up her truck.

 

Camila wasn’t at the pizza place where Lauren had run into her twice and she wasn’t at the gas station on 5th with the friendly old checker and she wasn’t in the soup kitchen and she wasn’t on any of the streets in between. By six o’clock Lauren was hungry and tired and she had to admit it to herself – Camila wasn’t anywhere.

 

When she got home Lauren sat down on the sidewalk by her trashcan and put her head in her hands.

 

She hadn’t been lonely,  _really_  lonely, in almost a year. And Camila, Camila had ruined everything.

 

“Miss Jauregui!” an all too familiar voice squawked. Lauren sighed and clutched at her beanie harder. Fantastic. “Miss Jauregui!”

 

“Yeah?” Lauren asked, pulling herself up and leaning against the trashcan. She eyed Mrs. Smith in annoyance. Couldn’t a girl sulk in peace?

 

“I’ve been meaning to talk to you,” Mrs. Smith was saying, hands on her hips. “Miss Jauregui, your grandmother was a bad enough neighbor – all those cats and her music – and she never mowed the lawn, never! And that fence! Look at the paint on that fence, it’s still a mess-“

 

Lauren sighed and rubbed her palm over her face, eyes gritty from lack of sleep. The last thing she needed right now was-

 

“-I mean, a homeless person! Really, I-“

 

“Wait!” Lauren reached out to grab the older woman’s shoulder and Mrs. Smith cut off abruptly, looking down at her hand like it was disgusting, unwashed. “Wait, a homeless… What?”

 

“You never listen! Young people, they never do! There was a homeless person going through your trash, Miss Jauregui. When I tried to tell her this is a  _respectable_  neighborhood and we certainly don’t allow such things here, she told me she was helping you.” Mrs. Smith curled her lips in obvious distaste. “The stray cats are bad enough, but stray  _people_?”

 

“She’s not a stray  _anything_ ,” Lauren growled out, releasing her neighbor’s shoulder very deliberately so as not to do something stupid. “She’s Camila, and what the hell did you say to her, because I can’t find her.”

 

Mrs. Smith frowned severely, squaring her jaw. “I certainly told her she was on private property and she-“

 

“ _My_  private property!” Lauren interrupted, teeth clenching. “My private property, and I’ll have whoever the hell I want on it.”

 

Mrs. Smith made a displeased noise and Lauren sighed, massaging her temple against the approaching migraine. “Just, please, where is she? Did she say where she was going? Did she say anything?”

 

“Something about a whale?” Mrs. Smith offered with a suspicious frown. “I think she may have been deranged.”

 

“Great,” Lauren muttered, shaking her head. “Freaking wonderful.”

 

——-

 

Lauren spent most of her weekend searching and sulking alternatively but she couldn’t find Camila anywhere.

 

In the end Lauren didn’t find Camila at all – Camila found her.

 

Lauren was sitting at the park on the same bench she’d sat with Camila. She was staring up at the sky but there were hardly any clouds out and the sun shined too brightly. It hurt her eyes and she wondered why she hadn’t brought sunglasses. When someone sat down beside her, Lauren didn’t look over, didn’t care who they were. She just wished they would go find their own bench.

 

They’d been sitting there for a while, unmoving and silent beside each other, when the person abruptly moved and kicked Lauren not too lightly in the shin. Lauren snapped her head to face them, a snarl on her lips. The sound died in her throat when she saw the familiar brown eyes right in front of her.

 

“Camila!” Lauren cried, wide eyed.

 

“Yes,” Camila agreed. “I’m-”

 

Lauren shook her head, wrapping her fingers possessively around Camila’s upper arm. “Where the hell have you been?” She demanded, fighting the unfamiliar urge to reach out and hug someone. Namely, Camila.

 

“I have been a lot of places,” Camila answered, tolerant of Lauren’s clutching fingers. “Right now I am here.”

 

Then Lauren really did reach out and hug Camila, pulled her close in what she hoped was a friendly but slightly indifferent hug, but if it wasn’t she figured Camila wouldn’t know the difference.

 

It was odd; you never knew what was important to you until it was gone. If you were lucky you got it back again.

 

“Yeah, well,” Lauren said, clutching the thin material of Camila’s shirt with her free hand, “stay for awhile, okay? Why did you leave? I was looking for you.”

 

Lauren could feel Camila’s lips shaping into a frown against her shoulder and she pulled away suddenly, flushing. Camila didn’t quite let go of her though, a possessive hand wrapped around the cloth of Lauren’s sleeve.

 

“Smars says go away,” Camila informed her sadly. “She’ll call the police and they’ll take me away. I don’t like the police, so I went away.”

 

“Mrs. Smith?” Lauren asked, though she knew the answer already.

 

“Smars,” Camila insisted, pulling at Lauren’s sleeve. “Smars from Mars.”

 

“She’s just like that,” Lauren tried to explain, feeling like a jerk for defending her neighbor, who clearly had not been any kinder to Camila than she was to anyone else. “She’s a bitch but she wouldn’t really call…” She might, actually. “I’m sorry.”

 

“She’s so dull,” Camila told her, eyes unfocused. “Not shiny at all.”

 

“Oh my God.” Lauren laughed. “You and your ‘shiny’ talk. I don’t know why I missed it.”

 

Camila just grinned, her eyes bright.

 

“Come with me,” Lauren said abruptly. “Come back to my house. We’ll play video games. With the colorful buttons, remember?”

 

Camila shook her head, releasing Lauren’s sleeve. Lauren bit at her lip, feeling strangely desperate. “Mrs. Smith won’t bother you,” she promised. “I have this stuff, tinfoil, I bet you’d love it, it’s really shiny…”

 

“It’s Friday,” Camila said, though Lauren didn’t see what that had to do with anything, and she was pretty sure it was Monday, actually. Really, pretty sure. “I always go see Sparkles when it’s Friday.”

 

“Sparkles?” Lauren repeated. “You know someone named  _Sparkles_?”

 

“Of course!” Camila responded cheerfully. Lauren sort of doubted ‘Sparkles’ was anyone’s real name, though. She also sort of wondered what Camila called  _her_  when she wasn’t around. Lauren really hoped it wasn’t something lame like Sparkles. It was probably something even worse though, like Miss Shiny or something.

 

Which struck Lauren with an odd thought, actually. “Camila… do you know my name?”

 

“Camila?” Camila offered.

 

Lauren stared.

 

Camila stared back.

 

By Lauren’s estimation they’d known each other for almost a month. Lauren had never introduced herself.

 

Camila didn’t know her name.

 

Christ.

 

“It’s Lauren,” Lauren said slowly, sticking her hand out. “My name is Lauren.”

 

Camila didn’t shake her hand but she did nod, looking pleased.

 

“Lauren,” Camila repeated, the name rolling oddly off her lips. She said it a few more times, trying different inflections and tones until she was satisfied with one.

 

“Lauren,” Camila said with an air of finality, approval maybe. “Lauren and Camila.”

 

“Yeah,” Lauren agreed, voice oddly hoarse. “Lauren and Camila.”


	6. Star Light, Star Bright

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

When Sparkles was mentioned again it actually was Friday, although Lauren thought this was probably more by coincidence than it was Camila actually keeping a realistic track of time.

 

Ever since Camila had gone missing the previous week Lauren could not help but feel a bit nervous when she wasn’t around. It wasn’t that Lauren was lonely, it was just, if Camila wasn’t with Lauren, where was she exactly?

 

When she thought about it, Lauren didn’t know that much about Camila. She didn’t know a thing about Camila’s past and she really didn’t know much about Camila’s present, either. Camila liked things that reflected the light and she liked to talk about the stars and she had some friends with odd names who Lauren had never met. Camila had never mentioned anything about her family or where she lived. If she lived anywhere.

 

Lauren was pretty sure Camila lived  _somewhere,_  but after a month of knowing Camila and six days of losing her, ‘pretty sure’ wasn’t quite cutting it anymore.

 

So, sitting down for a breakfast of stale cereal on Friday morning, Lauren devised a plan. First she would lead Camila into her house with promises of food and then she would sit Camila down to have a very serious discussion about her living arrangements, and, did Camila have heating and central air and running water and food in her fridge? Because Camila was actually much a bit skinny and probably didn’t hold up well in less than perfect conditions.

 

Lauren hoped Camila liked pasta.

 

She went to the supermarket instead of going to work that day and when Camila came to dig through Lauren’s trash that evening, she was ready.

 

“Come inside,” Lauren invited, as had been their routine after Camila had gone missing the week before. It was turning out to be an unusually cold and overcast winter and Camila looked a bit too fragile to be left outside.

 

Which was exactly what they were going to talk about.

 

“But the trash!” Camila protested as Lauren dragged her towards the front door, her hand wrapped securely around Camila’s bare upper arm.

 

Lauren rolled her eyes fondly as Camila made quiet whining noises and they both stepped through the doorway. “You can go through it later. The trash isn’t going anywhere, I promise.”

 

“You promise?” Camila asked, and it sounded like more than Camila just repeating Lauren’s words back to her the way she sometimes did.

 

When Lauren turned around, Camila was staring at her with large, trusting eyes. It made Lauren oddly uncomfortable to have Camila’s eyes on her that way, focused and faithful. “Ah, yeah, I promise.” Lauren shifted nervously under Camila’s intense gaze. “Come on, you’re going to help me make dinner.”

 

Camila followed along obediently into the too large kitchen and Lauren set a pot full of water on the stove and turned it on, metal clanking hollowly against metal, echoing off the walls as Camila cocked her head oddly.

 

Lauren had seen those designer shows on television (she was  _bored_ , okay? It hadn’t been on purpose or anything) where the prospective house buyers were always talking about the kitchens.  _Too small, too cramped, needs updating, stainless steel, granite countertops._

 

They never said  _too big, too hollow, too cold,_  but Lauren was pretty sure once Mr. and Mrs. Disgustingly-Sappy-Newlywed moved into their new cookie cutter home in the suburbs they would find it frozen and vast around them.

 

Everything in her grandmother’s house was too big, too empty. Lauren wondered how her grandmother had lived there alone all the years she had and not gone crazy. Lauren wondered how she’d lived there the last year and not gone crazy.

 

Lauren wondered if this thing with Camila qualified her as crazy.

 

Probably.

 

Camila was still hovering across the room by the stove, eyeing it curiously as Lauren stood in front of the pantry, collecting the simple ingredients for their meal.

 

“You know not to touch a hot stove, right?” Lauren asked cautiously, glancing over her shoulder at her guest.

 

“Yes,” Camila said, and then stuck a testing fingertip into the fire of the gas burning stove anyway.

 

Lauren promptly dropped their dinner on the linoleum floor, the glass bottle of pasta sauce shattering into a puddle of tomato gore, and was beside Camila almost before Camila’s hand jerked back on reflex.

 

Camila frowned all too calmly and stuck her finger in her mouth. “It’s hot,” she informed Lauren around her finger.

 

“That’s what I just said!” Lauren complained, reaching haltingly for Camila’s wrist.

 

Camila made a quiet noise of protest as Lauren tried to pull her hand away, stepping back.

 

“Let me see,” Lauren coaxed, even though she didn’t have the slightest idea what to do for a burn. Her mother had never been the type to coddle and when Lauren had gotten burns as a child from curious fingers Clara had just shook her head and said, ‘Well, that’ll teach you now won’t it?’

 

And it had taught Lauren, but it hadn’t taught her how to treat a burn.

 

Camila took another uncertain step back towards the stove and Lauren quickly reached around her to turn the burner off. “I’ll fix it for you,” she promised, even though she wasn’t sure how. “Just let me see, Camila.”

 

Lauren pulled again on Camila’s wrist and this time Camila let her, her finger slipping free from her mouth. Camila didn’t seem to understand Lauren’s intentions though, because instead of allowing Lauren to examine her burnt finger, Camila pushed her hand forward and pressed her skin against Lauren’s lips.

 

“Geh!” Lauren protested involuntarily, which did not end up being quite the thing to do, because then Camila’s finger was pushing past her lips.

 

Camila’s skin was silky and soft, the top of her finger pressing against the bridge of Lauren’s mouth. Lauren very carefully did not bite down, despite her surprise, and instead grabbed Camila’s wrist firmly and pushed her hand away.

 

“That wasn’t how I was going to fix it,” Lauren said, biting her upper lip.

 

Camila just shrugged calmly and turned away to examine the ceiling. Lauren swallowed nervously and grabbed frantically for an apple on the counter, crunching into it before she could decide exactly what Camila tasted like.

 

——-

 

They had pizza for dinner. Camila held her slice oddly, with the thumb and middle finger of her hand.

 

“Why are you doing that?” Lauren asked. “Does your finger still hurt?” She felt strangely content with Camila sitting across from her looking happy and comfortable and just as strange as ever.

 

Camila took a careful bite of her pizza and raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

 

“This,” Lauren clarified, mimicking Camila’s hold on the pizza slice with her own fingers.

 

Camila didn’t answer, just smiled around her pizza, chewing slowly and watching Lauren with obvious approval.

 

Shaking her head, Lauren took a bite of her pizza and they both sat at her grandmother’s old kitchen table, eating pepperoni pizza and holding it with careful fingers.

 

——-

 

Later that night Lauren was able to determine that Camila actually did have a place to stay, though Camila was rather vague in saying where. She apparently shared a place with Elvis, and Camila assured Lauren very seriously that their place of residence had many walls, which was a good thing, Lauren supposed. She wanted to ask Camila if she could see the place herself to make sure that it really was safe but she couldn’t quite figure out how to ask and in the end, Lauren just ended up sitting them both down in the living room for another round of video games.

 

Camila had quickly grown fond of the colorful games with sound effects and blaring music. Secretly Lauren thought Camila’s favorite part of the games was the music, the way she bopped her head and hummed along. Perhaps Lauren was biased, though.

 

Lauren wanted to show Camila the guitar she’d saved up for with her grandmother’s help a few years before she died, wanted to play it and watch Camila’s face as she absorbed the music. She wanted to, but at the same time Lauren just couldn’t make herself do it.

 

What if Camila didn’t like the sound of it? What if Lauren really never was going to be a rock star? What then?

 

“Where are you going?” Lauren asked when Camila stood abruptly, though Lauren wasn’t sure why she’d bothered to ask. Camila always left abruptly, never said goodbye or waved or even glanced behind her as she left. It was comforting, almost, because Lauren took this to mean that Camila would be back the next day.

 

That or Camila just had bad manners, which Lauren couldn’t really hold against her, considering.

 

Camila stopped and turned at the sound of Lauren’s voice, already half way to the door and standing awkwardly. “I go to see Sparkles on Fridays.”

 

“I know,” Lauren said, standing as well. “Is it Friday?”

 

Camila raised a superior eyebrow, giving Lauren a look that said she thought Lauren was quite dumb.

 

“So, yes, then?” Lauren concluded. Camila nodded, glancing between the closed door and Lauren with a thoughtful look in her eye that Lauren didn’t trust at all but was beginning to grow fond of. More than fond of.

 

“I guess I’ll see you later, then,” Lauren said, fighting a frown. She couldn’t feel this way, attached and wanting. Not for anyone. Not for Camila.

 

“But you could see me now,” Camila said. “Why see me later? Why not see me now and then later, too?” She stepped forward to wrap her fingers around Lauren’s arm and jerked them both towards the door.

 

Lauren let Camila pull her without resistance, stumbling forward. “Sparkles won’t mind?”

 

“Of course not!” Camila scoffed. “I tell her about you all the time.”

 

“You do?”

 

Camila nodded encouragingly. “I do. She likes you, of course.”  _Of course_  – like Camila thought everybody who had met Lauren or had even heard of her couldn’t help but like her.

 

It was a heartening vote of confidence, if completely incorrect.

 

“I guess I’ll have to meet her, then,” Lauren said, allowing herself to be dragged out the door.

 

Lauren wasn’t sure where she thought they’d be going, towards the city maybe. That wasn’t the way they went, of course, because Camila never did what Lauren thought she would. The two of them walked beside each other in the darkness, Lauren glancing every few moments out of the corner of her eye at Camila’s delicate features illuminated by the glowing street-lamps.

 

Distracted by Camila’s slightly prominent cheekbones and her fingers, still wrapped comfortably around Lauren’s wrist, Lauren didn’t realize where they were going until her feet hit forgiving dirt, the grass squishing beneath her boots.

 

The park had little in the way of lighting. It was hard to see but Camila seemed to know where she was going, dragging Lauren along happily. Lauren tried not to think about Camila walking around at night on her own like this.

 

“Are you sure we’re going the right way?” Lauren asked when they started to walk up a large hill by the outer edge of the park. Lauren was pretty sure they weren’t going to find anything, or more specifically  _anyone_ , waiting for them at the top.

 

Camila did not seem deterred though, just moved her thumb to stroke Lauren’s knuckles as they made their way up the grassy hill. Lauren did not blush, because Lauren was too much of a badass future rock star for that sort of thing, and besides… besides.

 

“There,” Camila was saying, pointing up towards the dark and smoggy sky. Lauren didn’t see anything. “Sparkles.”

 

“Where?” Lauren turned her head to search the area around them.

 

“ _There._ ” Camila pulled at Lauren’s arm so they were both pointing into the sky now. “She’s that one.”

 

Lauren frowned, squinting up into the darkness, not sure what she was looking for. “What?”

 

“The shiny one.”

 

She squinted her eyes harder but all Lauren could see was the night, the sky – smog and dull stars and an airplane overhead and… stars. “Sparkles…” Lauren said, with dawning realization. “Sparkles is a star? Sparkles is the name of a star. That you talk to.”

 

“Not  _a_  star,  _that_  star,” Camila insisted, releasing Lauren’s arm. “Sparkles.”

 

“Wow, Camila, really?” Lauren craned her neck, somehow knowing exactly which star it was Camila was talking about.

 

“She shines.” Camila sounded so sure of it, Lauren just couldn’t bring herself to say anything about befriending glimmers in the sky and naming them ridiculous things. “Just like you, Lauren. Just like you and you eyes.”

 

Camila edged closed and they both stood there, in a small park in a smoggy city, staring up at the sky together.

 

Camila’s star was neither the biggest nor the brightest in the sky, but the more Lauren looked at it the more it seemed to shine.


	7. Things Stolen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

It was raining again. Not nearly as harshly as it had weeks before, not nearly as cold, and Lauren knew Camila had her hoodie, so there wasn’t anything to worry about.

 

Lauren wasn’t worried.

 

If she  _was_  worried, it was only because once Lauren had grown used to Camila’s presence, the weekends seemed desolate and dull, too quiet. It was hard to think that Lauren had been spending all her free time alone for almost a year. It felt insubstantial now, unreal - like waking up from a dream. The world seemed alive with Camila in it, brighter and real. Somehow Camila’s strange introduction into Lauren’s world had changed it.

 

For one thing, she worried a hell of a lot more.

 

Sighing, Lauren glanced again at the clock.

 

What did Camila do all day, anyway? Why couldn’t Lauren have her all the time?

 

Lauren startled at a loud noise, jumping to her feet. Camila was ringing her doorbell.

 

Lauren knew it was Camila because no one else ever came to her door and no one else rang a doorbell quite like Camila did. Which was to say, holding down the button until the once friendly chimes were screeching wails of death and pain.

 

“You’re early,” Lauren said as she swung the door open, trying only half successfully to keep the grin off her face. She moved aside to usher Camila in, who was soaked, dripping on the floor, her skin slick and bare except for a small tank top. “Where’s your sweatshirt?” Lauren admonished with a frown.

 

“Away,” Camila responded miserably. “Took it away.”

 

Lauren stopped abruptly in her hustling Camila down the hallway, turning to see her friend and realizing that Camila did not look happy and carefree the way she usually did. Her eyes were too dull, her lips pressed too closely together. Lauren didn’t like it. “Someone took your sweatshirt? Really?”

 

Camila nodded frantically and Lauren noticed her eyes were wide and wet, shimmering in the dull hallway light, and  _oh God, please don_ _’_ _t cry._

 

Camila bit her lip, scrunching her nose and making an odd little noise in the back of her throat.

 

“It’s okay,” Lauren assured her anxiously, raising her hands uselessly into the air, unsure of what to do with them.

 

Camila shook her head, wet hair flinging water drops against the wall. “My warmth. They took it away.” She was biting her lip with slightly crooked teeth now, shoulders trembling faintly.

 

Lauren swallowed nervously.

 

Camila made a sad little hitching noise.

 

“Don’t cry!” Lauren blurted out, waving her hands around pointlessly. Camila did not look convinced, her lips trembling. “Please don’t,” Lauren begged. “It’s not a big deal. I’ll get you another hoodie, we’ll go to the mall and I’ll buy you one. A purple one, okay? Any color you want. Just please, please don’t cry.” Lauren had never known what to do with sobbing people and she certainly didn’t know what to do with a crying Camila. She would buy Camila a whole new wardrobe to avoid having to see that.

 

“But  _Lauren_ ,” Camila whined and Lauren waited nervously for more but that seemed to be the extent of Camila’s protest. They stared at each other for a long moment, Lauren at a complete loss, until Camila’s lip stopped trembling and she blinked away tears.

 

“Yeah, you’re fine, nothing to get upset about,” Lauren assured, letting her shoulders slump and taking a relieved breath when Camila began to look calmer. “Who took your hoodie?”

 

Camila scrunched her eyebrows together, as if the question required great thought. “He was not my friend,” Camila finally came up with.

 

“Did Elvis take it?” Lauren asked with a suspicious frown, remembering Camila’s statement weeks before, that Elvis was using her jacket. “Is your roommate taking your things? Because-“

 

“Elvis does not take,” Camila insisted. Lauren would have gone on, but Camila had begun to shiver slightly, still dripping rain water on the hard flooring.

 

“Ah, here.” Lauren moved abruptly to grab a thick towel and wrap it around Camila’s shoulders.

 

“It’ll be okay,” Lauren promised when she noticed Camila’s eyes on her, trusting and intense as they always were. The words felt awkward and strange on Lauren’s lips but Camila nodded, believing.

 

“Yes.”

 

——-

 

It was raining even harder by the time the sun had gone down, water drops crashing against the large window in the family room. Lauren and Camila sat together on the floor in front of the window, watching as the wind blew against the trees, bending them and moving them and blowing away their leaves but never breaking them.

 

“Do you think someday the sky will open up and swallow us all whole?” Camila asked, not taking her eyes off the window being pelted with rain.

 

“No,” Lauren responded, and could not help but watch Camila’s profile instead of the rain. “I don’t think that.”

 

“Yeah.” Camila sighed, resting her chin on folded arms on the windowsill. “Me neither.”

 

Camila was fluttering her eyelashes as she watched the rain, soft pink lips opening and closing in awe. Lauren looked abruptly away.

 

“You like music, Camila?” She asked, standing suddenly and moving towards the stereo.

 

“The world is made of music,” Camila said from behind her.

 

Lauren nodded vaguely, shoving the first CD she could get her hands on into the stereo. It was something from her huge collection. Lauren had always spent most of her money in music, which caused her many problems with her parents.

 

When she walked back towards the window, Camila was still as enticing as she had been when Lauren had moved away. Her throat felt dry, suddenly.

 

 _Don_ _’_ _t,_  Lauren told herself sternly, even though she wasn’t entirely sure what she meant,  _just, don_ _’_ _t._

 

Camila was humming softly to the music, eyes closed and eyelashes thick and dark against her skin.

 

“You like this?” Lauren asked, strangely proud.

 

Camila nodded, opening her eyes to give Lauren a curious look. “Why would I not?”

 

“People only like the music MTV tells them they like,” Lauren explained grumpily. She liked some of that music too, but she was not about to admit that. “They’re all a bunch of sheep.”

 

“Moo,” said Camila.

 

“ _Sheep_ , Camila.”

 

The two of them listened to the music in companionable silence for a while, the only sound the beat from the stereo and the rain against the windows, and then Camila started to sing quietly along. Words that didn’t make sense to Lauren, didn’t go together. They only sounded vaguely like the ones in the song, some not at all.

 

“Do you want to see the lyrics?” Lauren offered, already moving to dig through her impressive music collection for the CD case.

 

When she handed it to Camila though, Camila flipped through the booklet quickly, never staring at any page long enough to read it. She stopped only to examine the drawing on the back of the booklet with interest.

 

It gave Lauren a strange feeling in her stomach.

 

“Camila…” Lauren asked cautiously, throat suddenly dry for a completely different reason. “Can you read?”

 

“Can’t everyone?” Camila asked disinterestedly, turning the booklet to look at the picture sideways.

 

“No.”

 

“Yes,” Camila disagreed petulantly.

 

“No, they can’t,” Lauren said slowly, moving to dig through her CD collection to see if she could find lyrics Camila would be more interested in. “Didn’t you go to school?”

 

“Doesn’t everyone?”

  
Lauren sighed. Questions with more questions. Always. “You really are insanely frustrating.”

 

Camila just shrugged. “You would miss me if I was gone.”

 

It was an oddly coherent response for Camila. Lauren had to stop and look up at her, see if she was still, well,  _Camila_. She looked the same, blinking back at Lauren with large brown eyes. Lauren frowned suspiciously.

 

Camila gave her a knowing smile. “I see more than you think I do.”

 

“I think you see a lot,” Lauren disagreed. “More than most people. More than me.”

 

“You see more than you think you do,” Camila told her.

 

Lauren’s wasn’t so sure about that. She frowned curiously and Camila started to hum a contrasting tune over the new music playing. “ _Look at the stars,_ ” she sang, louder and more on key than Lauren would have expected, and it surprised her enough that she snapped her mouth shut, speechless. “ _Look how they shine for you…_ ”

 

 _Yellow_ , Lauren’s mind supplied immediately as Camila continued to sing the same two lines again and again. Coldplay was exactly her type of music, so she knew it very well.

 

“I don’t understand, Camila,” Lauren finally said when Camila had sung the same lines at least ten times. Camila’s obsession with things that shined and sparkled, and the sky and the stars,  _talking_  to the stars, Lauren didn’t understand any of it.

 

Lauren supposed Camila got a lot of that, a lot of people who didn’t understand, pretty much everyone she talked to, probably.

 

“Explain it to me,” Lauren asked, and Camila stopped singing to give her a delighted smile.

 

Lauren wasn’t going to be one of those people.

 

——-

 

It hadn’t stopped raining when Camila rose from the couch to leave, abruptly and without words as she always did.

 

Lauren reached out immediately to grab her wrist and Camila stumbled forward a bit before turning to Lauren in obvious confusion.

 

“It’s still raining,” Lauren pointed out dumbly. “You can’t go out in the rain.”

 

“I can,” Camila disagreed, taking another step towards the door. Lauren tightened her hold desperately.

 

“You really can’t. It’s cold and wet and dark. You could slip and fall. You could get mugged. You could get sick. You could catch pneumonia, Camila. You could catch pneumonia and die and then where would you be? Where would I be?”

 

Camila blinked.

 

“It is raining,” Lauren corrected herself, blushing harshly. “Please stay here.”

 

“Elvis will be alone,” Camila said, biting her lip worriedly.

 

Lauren was starting to think she really didn’t like this Elvis guy very much. “You can call him,” she said instead of what she really wanted to say, which was more along the lines of  _fuck Elvis._

 

“Will he hear me?”

 

“On the phone, Camila.” Lauren motioned towards the antique phone on the table. “You have a phone at your place, don’t you?”

 

Camila was eyeing the old phone suspiciously, as if she did not quite trust it. It was a rotary phone though, like one out of an old movie, it was possible Camila had never seen one.

 

“Just stay, Camila,” Lauren asked, coaxing. “Elvis will be alright for one night, won’t he?”

 

“Yes,” Camila agreed, not moving from glaring at the old phone.

 

“Good!” Lauren said, feeling strangely like she’d won something. What that something was, she couldn’t say.

 

When she was finally able to pull Camila away from the distrusted phone, Lauren led her down the hall towards the guest room that had not been used in years. As soon as Camila saw the bed, she was throwing herself into its musty sheets, black converse and all. Lauren laughed as Camila made quiet, pleased noises, rolling onto her back and running her fingers over the soft fabrics.

 

“My room is across the hall,” Lauren said, and then wasn’t sure why. Camila didn’t seem concerned, really. She was laughing quietly to herself, stretching out on the big bed and touching the headboard with her fingertips.

 

“Ah, good night, Camila.” Lauren turned abruptly and took a fleeting step towards the door.

 

“Good morning, Lolo,” Camila called after her, and Lauren had to stop at that, frowning.

 

Camila had warmed up to Lauren’s name quickly once Lauren had introduced herself. For a few days, Camila had used her name in just about every sentence she possibly could, occasionally added it to the middle of a sentence even when it didn’t make sense. Lauren had rolled her eyes and secretly found it sort of endearing.  _Lolo_ , though…

 

“Lolo?” Lauren repeated curiously. She’d never had a nickname. Her parents certainly never had a nickname for her, and people at school just didn’t mess with her. Even her friends felt too intimidated to called her something that wasn’t her name.

 

Camila ignored her, humming happily in the back of her throat and lifting her hips off the bed so that her shirt rode up. Lauren stared at Camila’s bare stomach, catching sight of flawless skin. Lauren felt her face heating up and she looked away.

 

“Good night,” Lauren said again quickly before closing the door.

 

_What the hell had just happened?_

 

_Don_ _’_ _t Lauren. Just, don_ _’_ _t._


	8. Bows and Hoodies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

Mornings, Lauren thought as she leaned against the door frame to the guest room and watched Camila mumble sleepily into her pillow, were actually not that bad. All mornings should be like this, the quiet drizzle of rain rolling off the rooftop above and soft light just managing to shine through the gauzy curtains, playing off Camila’s brown hair and parted lips. If all mornings were like this, Lauren wouldn’t mind getting out of bed quite so much.

 

But all mornings could not be like this, Lauren reminded herself.

 

“Camila,” Lauren called, voice still rough with sleep. “It’s morning.”

 

Camila made a soft noise, moving comfortably below the thick white comforter.

 

“Time to get up,” Lauren called louder, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips. “Don’t you want breakfast?”

 

Camila just huffed again, rolling so she was facing farther away from Lauren. “Nruphle…” said Camila – or at least that’s what it sounded like to Lauren.

 

She allowed herself the full smile now. “You can’t stay here. I have to work,” Lauren reasoned.

 

“…Lolo…” said Camila, and Lauren bit her lip uncertainly and looked away.

 

“Right,” she said grudgingly. “I guess you can stay, then.” What was the worst that could happen? She only had to work for a few hours, maybe Camila would just sleep the whole time.

 

Camila huffed into her pillow.

 

“Stay out of trouble,” Lauren told the sleepy lump of silky brown hair. “I’ll be back before noon, okay?”

 

Camila made a soft sound that Lauren was going to interpret as agreement and Lauren shut the door quietly behind her.

 

Preparing the food for the strays in the kitchen, Lauren could not wipe the smile off her face. It pulled at the underused muscles in her cheeks, making them ache.

 

“Stop that,” Lauren admonished herself quietly, setting the food down for the strays that were waiting on the back porch.

 

Cat seemed anxious, meowing long and sad sounds and watching Lauren with worried green eyes. For the first time Lauren reached out to pet her.

 

——-

 

Lauren should never,  _never_  have left Camila alone in her house.

 

She hadn’t wanted to go to work, not with Camila all warm and cozy in her guest room. It wasn’t even her day to work; another barista had quit for a better job at Starbucks and Lauren had been called in for a few hours to fill in part of her shift. She would have said no, as Lauren was a firm believer that weekends were meant for nothing more than TV, infomercials, cheesy puffs and cheesy movies, but Lauren had been skipping out on Cocoa’s much too often since she’d met Camila. Not only was her manager severely displeased but Mrs. Smith kept extensive tabs on all her neighbors and when Lauren didn’t leave for work in the mornings, she all too often came over to ask why.

 

Probably hoping she’d dropped dead.

 

Still, when Lauren stepped through her door after work and was greeted with Camila’s smiling face it became all too clear that she should have stayed home anyway.

 

“Holy shit. What did you  _do_?”

 

Camila blinked innocently back at her. Her brown hair was perfectly brushed, and there was a huge and shocking pink bow attached to her head.

 

“I look pretty?” Camila asked, trying to turn her head to see her bow. Lauren gaped.

 

“What did you… _How_  did you…”

 

“Fabric, scissors and pink spray,” Camila explained, waving vaguely towards the bathroom.

 

“I don’t even have pink spray!”

 

“Well, not anymore,” Camila agreed.

 

Lauren shook her head and moved haltingly towards the bathroom, still suspicious. “You look like you have come out of a silly TV cartoon.” There were two bottles of spray sitting on the counter in her bathroom, though. Lauren recognized them immediately as the bottles she had found the first day she moved into her grandmother’s house. She could never understand why she had had them, though.

 

And she hadn’t been able to throw the bottles away even weeks after she’d moved in, so she had just shoved them under the sink and forgotten about them.

 

Now, Lauren reached out and grabbed the metal bottles – shiny, she noted – and shoved them harshly into the trash.

 

“You throw it all away,” Camila said sadly from behind her.

 

“They’re empty, Camila,” Lauren responded, closing her eyes to press her palms against her eyelids. When she opened them again Camila was watching her intensely from the mirror.

 

“Only because you think they are.”

 

Lauren frowned, giving Camila’s reflection a dubious look. “That doesn’t make any sense. You never make any sense.”

 

Camila did not seem all that concerned by this. Lauren was sure Camila had heard it many times before in much less friendly tones. Instead, Camila moved forward to stand next to Lauren, curling her fingers around the edge of the counter and leaning in close to examine her own reflection.

 

“I look pretty,” Camila concluded after a moment.

 

“You look odd,” Lauren said, not quite disagreeing. The bow was certainly… attention grabbing. She reached a tentative hand out, curious of how Camila had managed to keep it attached to her head. Camila allowed it pleasantly, moving so her hair brushed again Lauren’s curious fingertips.

“You think I’m pretty.”

 

Lauren’s hand froze. She gave a nervous laugh, watching Camila’s smiling face with trepidation. “I think you’re odd,” she corrected, stepping back to put some distance between them.

 

Camila did not disagree, only went back to examining herself in the mirror. Lauren turned quickly to leave the bathroom, suddenly feeling claustrophobic within its walls.

 

——-

 

Lauren promised she’d take Camila shopping and she intended to keep that promise. It was just a bit more trouble than Lauren thought it would be. To begin with, it took Lauren an exasperating amount of time to convince Camila that Elvis really would be okay on his own for a few more hours.

 

Camila was much too concerned with her roommate’s welfare, Lauren thought.

 

When they finally stepped out the door Camila’s bow was still on her head. Lauren couldn’t bring herself to say anything against it. She figured Camila was going to get stares anyway, simply because she was Camila.

 

“I’m an awesome driver,” Lauren promised when Camila stopped a few feet short of the passenger side door of her truck, eyeing it distrustfully.

 

Camila didn’t budge an inch.

 

“What, you don’t believe me?” Lauren pushed teasingly at Camila’s shoulder and Camila stumbled forward slightly before taking a wary step back. “I’m great. The best. I could drive professionally if I wasn’t going to be a rock star.”

Camila said nothing in response and Lauren imagined she looked a bit pale, but then, maybe it was just the daylight.

 

“Come on,” Lauren encouraged, opening Camila’s door for her. “You’ll like where we’re going.”

 

It didn’t get easier. When Camila finally crawled into the truck she didn’t want to put her seat belt on, and when she had that on, she didn’t want Lauren to walk around to the other side of the car, was afraid to be left alone with the dashboard for even a moment.

 

Once all that was done though, Lauren thought they were on their way. She put the keys in the ignition and turned on the motor, and Camila just started screaming. It was deafening, ringing in Lauren’s ears like a siren.

 

“Shit!” Lauren yelled, her voice completely drowned out by Camila’s screaming. “What the hell?”

 

She flipped the car off with frantic fingers, pulled the key out with a jerk. Camila calmed immediately, snapping her mouth shut mid-wail.

 

Lauren breathed deeply, patting cautiously at Camila’s arm, feeling distressed by Camila’s distress. “Hey, it’s okay, it’s just—“

 

“My God, Miss Jauregui, what on  _earth_  are you doing?” a familiar voice called, heels clicking again the pavement as Mrs. Smith marched towards them, her front door left open in her haste to tell someone off.

 

Lauren moaned and resisted the urge to bang her head against the dashboard.

 

“ _Her_  again,” Mrs. Smith sneered when she’d reached the side of the truck, giving Camila a knowing look, and then Lauren had to resist the urge to bang Mrs. Smith’s head against the dashboard too.

 

“This is Camila, Mrs. Smith,” Lauren introduced through clenched teeth.

 

“ _Camila_ ,” she said, eyeing Camila’s crazy bow with disdain.

 

“Smars,” Camila repeated back quietly, the obvious joy that Lauren could almost always hear in her voice missing. Lauren frowned worriedly, moving her hand to stroke the side of Camila’s face in what she hoped was a comforting manner. Camila turned her attention from the woman standing beside the car to watch Lauren guardedly.

 

Lauren continued to stoke Camila’s cheek with her fingers, words soft. “Camz” Lauren was surprised when the nickname left her lips and she swore she saw the corners of Camila’s mouth moving up a little, so she continued. “ I should have warned you how loud this car is, I guess. I didn’t—“

 

Mrs. Smith coughed loudly. Lauren shifted his focus to glare at her.

 

“I do hope you have an explanation for this! I know what  _she_  is,” Mrs. Smith extended a long, crooked finger at Camila. “She’s the one that goes through trashcans at night. It’s ridiculous! Disgusting! I really do not—“

 

“We really have to go now, Mrs. Smith,” Lauren interrupted, jaw tight. She reached quickly over Camila’s lap to crank the window up and Mrs. Smith gaped in outrage. Then she began to give what looked to be a rather long and heated speech through the glass, finger wagging and all. Lauren gave her a thumbs up before focusing her attention back on Camila, who was stiff beside her, pulling worriedly at her seat belt.

 

“We have to take the car if we want to go to the mall,” Lauren explained apologetically, pulling Camila’s hand away from yanking at the belt. “I think you’ll like it once we get there.” Lauren felt strangely desperate for Camila to agree. Camila was so wide-eyed and naive to everything, Lauren just wanted to show her new things so that Camila could touch them and hold them and be mystified with them the way Camila was mystified with everything.

 

“Yes?” Camila said, though she didn’t sound sure. Lauren smiled and patted at his Camila’s hair affectionately. Right next to her bow.

 

“I’m going to turn the car on again,” Lauren warned. “You’re prepared this time?”

 

Camila shook her head vehemently.

 

“The car is safe, Camila, I promise.”

 

“You promise?” Camila asked with trusting eyes, and Lauren knew it was going to be okay.

 

——-

 

Out of all the stores with their shiny gold watches and diamond rings and their slick iPods and paper-thin laptops and all the people at the mall, walking around in brightly colored clothing and talking loudly to each other, Camila was most mystified by the fountain. It was mossy and unclean looking and Lauren winced as Camila ran her fingers over the edges, dipped them into the water and skimmed them over the coins at the bottom.

 

As much as Lauren tried to convince her, Camila would not be dissuaded from the fountain. Finally Lauren just sighed and sat down beside her. “You want to make a wish?” She offered, pulling out a coin from her pocket.

 

When she handed Camila the quarter though, Camila examined it closely, giving Lauren her brightest smile and slipping the coin into the front pocket of her jeans.

 

“You’re supposed to make a wish on it,” Lauren explained, gesturing towards the coins in the pool. “Then you throw it in the water.”

 

Camila shook her head sharply, leaning back on her hands and smiling at Lauren warmly. “You gave it to me,” she said with obvious awe, as if the tiny twenty-five cents meant a great deal more than Lauren realized.

 

Lauren only looked away in response, her eyes falling on a nicely decorated store front.

 

“Hey, come on, you’ll like this store,” Lauren promised, standing and pulling at Camila’s arm. Camila reluctantly left the fountain and they stepped through the doorway to Forever 21.

  
It was a place Lauren had shopped in few times, so she knew Camila’s clothes looked like they could have easily come from inside the store.

 

“You need a sweatshirt,” Lauren reminded Camila, who was eyeing a display of bows longingly.

 

Camila ignored her, pressing her fingertips up against the glass.

 

Lauren shook her head fondly, curling her palm around Camila’s thin wrist to pull her towards a rack of hoodies.

 

“These,” Lauren said, pressing Camila’s hand up against the material of the nearest sweatshirt. As she had expected, Camila was immediately taken with the soft fabric, running her fingers over several hoodies. “You pick the one you want.”

 

“This one,” Camila responded immediately, fingers curled so tightly and possessively around a black sweatshirt that her knuckles were turning white. “This one is mine.”

 

The hoodie was black with bright pink designs, half circles and strange lines and stars, always stars. It was big, though, and obviously meant for a taller girl.

 

“That’s too—“ Lauren started to say, and then stopped, watched the way Camila’s fingers curled around the sleeve of the thing, stroking a white star lovingly with her thumb. “It looks like you,” Lauren finished.

 

Camila grinned and pulled the new beloved thing close to her chest.

 

The cashier stared at Camila when they made their way to the counter, as everyone in the mall seemed to. She was worth staring at, Lauren had to agree.

 

“I like your bow.” The blond girl was ogling Camila with a clearly worshipful look on her face.

 

Camila smiled brightly back. “Lolo likes it too,” she told the cashier confidently.

 

The girl grinned, ringing up the sweatshirt and nodding towards Lauren. “That’s you, yeah?” she asked as Lauren handed over her credit card. “Lolo?”

 

“Lauren,” Lauren corrected immediately.

 

“Lolo,” Camila repeated.

 

The cashier just laughed knowingly. “That’s cute, girl. My girlfriend never lets me—“

 

“We’re going!” Lauren interrupted too loudly, grabbing her card and her sweatshirt and her Camila and walking swiftly out of the store. Camila was humming cheerfully beside her.

 

“You’re a lot of trouble, you know that?” Lauren asked gruffly, releasing Camila’s arm and slowing to a more normal pace. Camila just hummed louder.

 

——-

 

Camila was no calmer on the ride back to the house than she was on the ride to the mall. She did not scream, but Lauren drove the whole way back with her shoulders stiff, ready for the wailing to begin again.

 

It was not a good feeling, knowing that Camila was so afraid of something. It made Lauren wonder.

 

“What happened to you?” Lauren mumbled as she was undoing Camila’s seat belt and helping her shaky friend out of the truck. She didn’t expect an answer really, but as was traditional, Camila surprised her.

 

“Michael,” Camila said as she stood and took two large steps away from the truck.

 

Lauren cocked her head, watching Camila closely. She looked pale and ghostly in the bright sunlight, eyes a strange reflection. “Michael?” Lauren asked, and Camila snapped her head to face her, wide eyed and amazed, as if she was not sure how Lauren knew the name at all.

 

“Mike?” Camila asked, looking around at the bushes and the houses and the sky like they were hiding something. “Where?”

 

“Not here,” Lauren observed, unsure of whether her answer was a comfort or a disappointment to Camila.

 

Camila gave an odd frown, looking confused and still examining the scenery curiously. “Oh…” She took a step away, mumbling something about a movie. Lauren wondered if maybe stress was not good for Camila’s state of mind.

 

“Maybe you should stay a while longer,” Lauren suggested with false casualness.

 

Camila shook her head stubbornly, taking another step away from Lauren. “I’ll be late.”

 

“Late?” Lauren wondered what exactly Camila had to be late  _to_.

 

Camila was already moving away though, and Lauren had to run after her a few steps. “Wait!” She called. “Your hoodie.”

 

Camila did not stop, walking determinedly towards… wherever she was going, and Lauren had to grab her around the wrist to shove the sweatshirt into Camila’s hands.

 

“Your warmth, remember?”

 

Camila took the sweatshirt slowly, giving Lauren an indecipherable look and running her fingertips over the soft material, along the zipper and into the pockets.

 

“Yes,” Camila said softly, and then she was walking away again, down the suburban street, dark colored clothes and blown explosion of hair, a great contrast again the bright sunlight and cheery houses.

 

“Come back tomorrow!” Lauren called after her.


	9. Friends of Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

“I hate you,” Lauren said to her flimsy coffee cup. It was eight in the morning and Cocoa’s had just opened. Lauren was being forced to work another weekend shift. The Los Angeles air was smoggy and disgusting, sticking to Lauren’s skin, suffocating. The cars outside the store were too loud and Lauren’s iPod was out of batteries. “I hate you so much.”

 

The coffee cup did not respond.

 

Lauren glared harder.

 

“I hate you too,” Normani told her easily, flipping a page in her brightly colored magazine.

 

“Not you.” Lauren frowned at the cover of the magazine, trying to recognize any of the faces of the celebrities. “The coffee. I hate the coffee.”

 

Normani glanced disinterestedly at Lauren’s white Styrofoam cup. “Sure,” she said, looking down at her magazine again. “You’re pissy because of coffee. That makes sense.”

 

Lauren frowned harder, examining the cup. It was plain and white, the coffee inside gone cold already. Boring and hardly worthy of being the bane of Lauren’s existence.

 

Of course, if Lauren didn’t blame the coffee she’d have to admit to the real reason she was irritable, which did not happen to be the time of morning or even the cold coffee she was forced to sell. The reason of course was Camila.

 

If Lauren had not been nineteen, she would have been sure Camila was giving her gray hair. At the very least, Camila was making her pull her hair out.

 

The previous night Camila had seemed confused when she’d left, talking quietly about things that Lauren didn’t understand, and of course Camila always talked in a way Lauren hardly understood, but last night had been different, it had felt different, like maybe even Camila didn’t know what she was talking about.

 

The last place Lauren wanted to be now was at Cocoa’s. Or anywhere that was not with Camila, really.

 

The bells over the coffee shop’s front entrance jingled to signify a customer’s entrance and Lauren transferred her glare from the Styrofoam cup to the small woman walking towards her.

 

“Good morning,” the woman said with faux cheerfulness. “I’d like—”

 

“Screw off,” Lauren snapped, narrowing her eyes at the customer’s mousy little face. Short blond hair and blue eyes, a dressed in a neat blue dress.  _Not_  Camila. “Starbucks is down the street.”

 

Not Camila blinked a few times, glancing from Lauren to Normani, who did not look up from her magazine. “But I don’t want Star—”

 

“Screw off!” Lauren yelled, and Not Camila quickly turned tail and all but ran out the door, the annoying little bells left jingling in her wake.

 

Lauren promptly went back to glaring at her coffee.

 

“I hate you.”

——-

Lauren worried about Camila for the long hours she spent working at Cocoa’s, couldn’t take her mind off Camila or Michael all day, if there was a Michael. Laure’s dad was called Michael but she was sure Camila was not talking about her father. She worried and worried and waited and waited and when Camila finally came that night she was smiling brilliantly and cheerful as ever.

 

“Camila,” Lauren said, almost surprised to see Camila so happily digging through her trash, just as she always was.

 

“Lolo!” Camila pulled an apple core out of the trash to show Lauren proudly. “I’m going to plant a tree,” she said, eyes bright.

 

Lauren frowned. “Didn’t you already?”

 

Camila tilted her head oddly.

 

“You already planted a tree,” Lauren reminded her. “An apple tree. Don’t you remember?”

 

“Yes,” said Camila, frowning at the apple core thoughtfully like maybe she didn’t remember at all. She held it up to the fading light and Lauren watched Camila’s features soften in awe. Lauren glanced at the apple in Camila’s gloved hand but she still didn’t understand. It was just garbage to her.

 

“Come inside,” Lauren said after a moment, taking a step back towards the house. “You can plant your tree later.”

 

“It’s Wednesday,” Camila told her. It wasn’t, of course, it was Sunday. Camila had a lot of things she apparently did on specific days and at specific times, but it never seemed to be that day or time when she said it was. Lauren was starting to understand that Camila twisted time for her own convenience, though. If Camila wanted it to be Wednesday then to her it already was. “I visit Ben when it’s Wednesday.”

 

“You’re leaving?” Lauren asked, frowning. If any day could be Wednesday to Camila, couldn’t she pick a time that wasn’t supposed to be Lauren’s?

 

“You can visit him with me,” Camila allowed graciously, taking Lauren’s wrist in her hand and pulling until Lauren was following along.

 

“Is Ben a star?” Lauren asked as she walked beside a bouncy Camila, hyper aware of her fingers against her skin.

 

“No!” Camila laughed, charmed by Lauren’s obvious slowness. “You’re so silly, Lolo. What a ridiculous name for a star!”

 

“So Ben is human?” Lauren asked, just to be sure. Nothing was a given with Camila.

 

“Human is a funny word,” said Camila.

 

“That’s not very encouraging,” Lauren protested, allowing Camila to swing her arm back and forth as they walked.

 

“No,” Camila agreed, and Lauren grinned at her fondly.

 

“You know what a really funny word is?” Lauren asked, resisting the urge to hook her fingers around Camila’s. “Asparagus.”

 

Camila laughed, a pleasant sound that made Lauren’s stomach flip. “Yeah.”

 

They walked together, and after a moment Lauren pulled her wrist free of Camila’s grip and took her hand.

——-

A cemetery.

 

Fantastic.

 

“This is creepy, Camila. Let’s go,” Lauren complained, following behind Camila’s cheerful gait. It was dark out already and Lauren could feel sweat from the long walk slick against her back, the wind chilling her skin, making her shiver.

 

Or maybe it was the fact that they were in a cemetery.

 

“Go where?” Camila asked, stepping happily over a headstone. Lauren shuddered. “We can’t go now, we have to see Ben.”

 

“Please tell me Ben is the groundskeeper,” Lauren begged. It wasn’t that Lauren really wanted to meet a cemetery groundskeeper at night, it was just starting to look significantly better than any other option.

 

“Groundskeeper? Well, yes, he does keep the ground.”

 

Crap.

 

Lauren laughed, a slightly hysterical sound. “A groundskeeper, Camz. It’s a job, an occupation that a person, a  _living person,_  employs.”

 

Lauren wasn’t scared, it was just that it was dark, and Camila might not know where she was going and one of them might trip, and—

 

There was a creaking somewhere to Lauren’s left and she jumped, stumbling forward so she was closer to Camila, grabbing her arm desperately and holding on tightly.

 

Yeah, okay, Lauren might have been scared. Just a little.

 

“No, we should really—“ Lauren started to protest, but Camila came to an abrupt halt and Lauren very nearly tripped over her. Camila did not seem concerned, just plopped herself down happily on the grass in front of a crumbling grave.

 

“Hello, Ben!” Camila said cheerfully.

 

There were no flowers on the grave in front of Camila, no little presents like some of the other graves – and wow, were the graves with the teddy bears creepy or what? Lauren was never going to be able to look at her teddy the same way again. Yes, she had a teddy bear. So what?

 

Anyway, the headstone looked old, uncared for and obscured by growing weeds. There was nothing to indicate the person who had been buried there had anyone to visit them.

 

Except Camila.

 

Camila, who was a huge enigma that Lauren wasn’t sure she would ever figure out, who was greeting the cold stone of a grave, and who did not seem to have any human acquaintances, only the stars and now, apparently, the dead.

 

Perhaps Lauren shouldn’t have been surprised. Camila was anything but ordinary and Lauren couldn’t think of a single human being who would be special enough for Camila’s company, who Camila would find entertaining, or who would put up with Camila’s strange way of speaking and stranger mannerisms.

 

“Say hello, Lauren!” Camila demanded, waving towards the grave.

 

“Yeah, um… What’s up, Ben.”

 

Lauren was talking to a headstone. Life was weird.

 

Camila did not seem bothered in the least. She ran her fingers over the rough surface of the stone with all the gentleness one might show a lover. “I brought Lauren to see you. I told you I would, see?”

 

So not only was Camila telling the stars about Lauren, she was also having conversations about her with graves. Lauren wondered dimly what Camila said about her.

 

Camila chattered happily at the unresponsive stone and Lauren sat slowly down beside her, alternating her gaze from Camila to the old headstone.

 

It was creepy. Lauren had never been comfortable with the issue of the dead and the dying. She preferred to shove any such thoughts immediately to the back of her mind and pretend she’d never had them at all. Such coping techniques were not well suited for hanging out in a cemetery at night.

 

Lauren wondered what her grandmother’s grave looked like. She wondered if her parents had been visiting it or bringing her flowers. Lilies, her favorite flower had been.

 

Probably not.

 

“Just like you said,” Camila was gesturing wildly, telling the tombstone imaginative stories Lauren could not quite keep up with. “Like the chocolate bar, except better and you couldn’t even taste it, and—“

 

“Who was he?” Lauren asked, not entirely sure she wanted to know.

 

“Was?” Camila repeated, letting her hands fall limply into her lap and staring at Lauren with a confused look. Lauren nodded towards the tombstone and Camila frowned. “This is Ben. Did you forget?”

 

“Who was Ben when he was alive?” Lauren clarified.

 

“He was Ben then, too,” Camila said with an unconcerned shrug. “A bit more talkative. I don’t mind, though. Mom always told me I did enough talking for a whole room of people.”

 

_Mom._

 

It was the first time Camila had ever mentioned a family member. “Your mother said you talk a lot, huh?” Lauren asked, smiling at the thought. Camila certainly was the chatty type.

 

Camila blinked at her, expression blank.

 

“Camila?” Lauren encouraged.

 

“Lauren!” Camila said, a smile spreading across her lips. Lauren shook her head, feeling oddly fond of Camila’s oddities. Frustrating, but Lauren was growing used to it, maybe she even liked it.

 

She looked abruptly away from Camila’s bright face to stare at the grave instead. It was then that Lauren saw the dates engraved in the headstone.  _1913_ _–_ _1949_. Camila wouldn’t have been alive to know the man buried there. Brushing aside some moss that had grown over the stone’s engraving Lauren discovered that there wasn’t a man buried there at all.  _Jennifer Collins_ _–_ _Loving Sister, Daughter, and Friend_

 

“Camila—“

 

“Lauren! You’re killing Ben’s plants!” Camila cried, batting Lauren’s hand away from the headstone and trying unsuccessfully to push the moss Lauren had moved back into place.

 

Lauren watched her silently.

 

“I’m so sorry, Ben!” Camila apologized worriedly. “Lauren didn’t mean to. She’s very nice, really.”

 

Camila thought she was nice, Lauren thought distantly. They were in a cemetery in the dark, talking to a grave that seemed randomly to be named Ben, and Camila thought she was nice.

 

“Camila,” Lauren said as the other girl patted apologetically at the cold tombstone. “Let’s go back to the house, okay? It’s cold and you seem…”  _kind of really insane_  “…confused.”

 

“I’m not confused,” Camila insisted. “Ben isn’t confused either. No one is confused. Are you confused?” Camila asked, staring at Lauren with wide, curious eyes.

 

“Okay,” Lauren said soothingly. “You’re not confused. But, um, I am. I’m confused.” Lauren was always confused when Camila was around. She was so used to it that it was becoming uncomfortable and foreign  _not_  to be confused.

 

“Oh,” Camila said, scrunching her eyebrows together. “Me too. I think I hurt my head.”

 

“You hurt…” Lauren moved immediately forward to touch Camila’s brown hair, which was slightly puffy maybe because of the humidity, running her fingers over Camila’s skull. “Where? Were you bleeding?”

 

Of all the things in the world, Lauren did not want Camila to hurt.

 

There were no bumps on Camila’s head though, and Lauren didn’t feel the telltale stickiness of half dried blood as she ran her fingers through Camila’s soft hair. Camila did not flinch away from the seeking fingers in pain. If anything she leaned into them, humming happily and pressing her forehead to Lauren’s palm.

 

Lauren stopped moving her hands slowly, watching with uncertainty as Camila nuzzled her palm.

 

“You,” Lauren said, throat dry. “You should come sleep in my guest room again. It’ll be nice and warm there.” It wasn’t actually cold, if anything it was uncomfortably warm, but Lauren didn’t think Camila would notice.

 

“Elvis,” Camila said, as if that explained everything.

 

Lauren was getting sick of hearing that name. “ _Who_  is Elvis?”

 

“My friend!” Camila responded cheerfully and reached out to give the headstone an affection pat.

 

Lauren bit her lip. “But I’m your friend too, right?” She asked, and Camila frowned. Lauren hoped Camila considered her a friend, anyway. “I mean… right?”

 

“Oh.” Camila blinked a few times, a startled expression on her face as if she had never quite thought of that before. “Yes!” She decided after a short moment, and Lauren let out a breath she would not have admitted she was holding.

 

Camila was the only person she considered a friend, the only person Lauren had ever really wanted to befriend, despite how strange Camila was. Maybe  _because_  she was so strange, maybe just because she was Camila.

 

“Good. So you can come with me. Because I’m your friend.”

 

“No.” Camila shook her head and Lauren groaned inwardly. So damn stubborn. “I have to stay with Elvis. He’ll miss me.”

 

Lauren chewed her lip, unwilling to give in, unsure of what to say.  _I_ _’_ _d miss you more_? No.

 

“You should come see Elvis too, Lolo,” Camila invited easily, eyes bright with excitement because Camila seemed to want to show Lauren everything she treasured. “He likes you, of course.”

 

“Come see Elvis,” Lauren repeated. If Elvis was Camila’s roommate not only would Lauren get to meet the man behind the name, but she’d get to see what Camila’s living arrangements were like.

 

“Yeah,” Lauren said, and Camila rewarded her with a wide grin. “I’d like to meet Elvis.”


	10. Urban Decay

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

The walk to Camila’s home, wherever that might be, was as far from pleasant as anything could be while in Camila’s company.

 

Which, really, was not so bad.

 

Lauren didn’t even suggest that they drive. She couldn’t stand the thought of trapping Camila in her car again, the look on Camila’s face and the way her fingers curled around the seat belt desperately.

 

The walk wasn’t far but it was definitely in a direction Lauren didn’t want to go in, and more importantly a direction that Lauren didn’t want Camila to go in. Lauren had lived in Los Angeles long enough to know which areas were safe for loitering. The one they were headed for was most definitely not.

 

The farther they walked the dirtier the street below became. There were ragged people sitting at the bus stops, so covered in layers of clothing that Lauren could not even identify their genders as she walked by.

 

It felt sinister, the street and the few people hanging around, abandoned buildings with shattered windows and graffiti walls. It felt more dangerous even because with Camila beside her, Lauren could not help but worry for her companion’s safety, could not help but wonder if Camila walked down these streets alone.

 

Lauren licked her lips nervously as they passed a shabby building with walls so thin she could hear people yelling inside. She squared her shoulders, hoping to look tough beside Camila, who looked a bit like an innocent puppy in contrast to their surroundings.

 

“You’re sure we’re not lost?” Lauren asked for what may have been the sixth or seventh time. She’d been asking Camila at regular intervals if they were going the right way and Camila had been responding with a confident  _Yes!_  each time, which Lauren didn’t trust at all. As they grew closer and closer to dangerous streets Lauren began to hope that Camila really was going the wrong way.

 

“You take me to the nicest places,” Lauren joked.

 

Camila smiled calmly beside her. “I do,” she agreed seriously. “You’re just not looking close enough.”

 

Lauren looked closer but all she saw was grime and crumbling bricks on condemned buildings.

 

What had she been expecting, Lauren had to wonder. A gated community with cottage style houses and Camila’s parents waving to her from their front porch? Was she really that stuck in fantasy?

 

Camila seemed so happy with everything around her, so pleased with the world, Lauren couldn’t imagine her existing in a place that was less than perfect, less than what Camila deserved.

 

“You’re sure we’re going the right way?” Lauren asked again as they passed a shady figure leaning up against a technicolor wall of spray paint.

 

“ _We_ _’_ _re off to see the wizard…_ ” Camila sang in response and Lauren listened with fascination as she always did when Camila decided to carry a tune.

 

“You could be a rock star,” Lauren told her seriously. “We could be rock stars together.”

 

“Yes,” Camila agreed. Lauren nodded.

 

Someday they would be rock stars together.

 

It had been Lauren’s dream for as long as she could remember. The feel of her father’s silky guitars beneath her fingertips as a child had captivated her, the loud noises they made when she pulled at the strings had delighted her, at the same time it made her mother wince and her grandmother vibrate with joy.

 

It was surprisingly easy to include Camila in that dream now.

 

Lauren stumbled as Camila grabbed her wrist, pulling her off the sidewalk towards a small crumbling building that looked just like all the others.

 

“Here?” Lauren asked. “But it looks…”  _Abandoned._

 

“Come on,” Camila coaxed as Lauren stopped, staring at the faded bricks.

 

“You don’t live here,” Lauren said, trying not to sound hopeful. Camila  _couldn_ _’_ _t_  live here.

 

Camila scoffed and continued forward, and Lauren followed her with a sinking feeling in her stomach. They walked right past the building’s front door, which looked painted shut, and around to the side. There was a chain link fence there topped with rusted barbed wire. Just as Lauren reached forward to stop Camila from approaching the sharp metal, Camila slipped to the side and through an opening in the fence. She held the twisted metal of the fence open for Lauren, and Lauren swallowed nervously and slipped through.

 

“You’re just lost,” Lauren lied to herself. Camila wasn’t lost.

 

Lauren might have been lost, but Camila definitely wasn’t.

 

There was a broken window in the back of the building, thin pieces of shattered glass still sticking to the window frame’s edges. Camila pulled herself easily up and through the frame before Lauren could stop her. She stuck her hand through the opening towards Lauren, silently demanding. Her bare skin was much too close to the remaining shards of glass for Lauren’s comfort.

 

“Lolo,” Camila called from inside, wiggling her fingers invitingly.

 

Lauren took her hand.

 

The inside of building was no less desolate looking than the outside. There was no furniture to indicate anyone lived there or had ever lived there.

 

“You’re squatting,” Lauren said slowly.

 

“No?” said Camila, leading Lauren through an open doorway of rotting wood.

 

“You’re staying illegally.” Lauren gave the old walls a nervous look. “You don’t live here.”

 

“I live wherever I go,” Camila disagreed. “I am living.”

 

Camila, as ever, was not disturbed by her surroundings. She pulled Lauren happily up a flight of dangerous looking stairs and Lauren winced each time a step creaked under her feet, which was almost all of them. Up the stairs, Lauren followed Camila through a door hanging slightly off its hinges into a windowless room.

 

It was dark inside except for the dim illumination from a streetlight that came in through a literal hole in the wall. Large portions of paint were peeling off the walls around them and floorboards were missing sporadically. The wind blew and something creaked above. Lauren looked up to see the slats of the roof shuddering.

 

She winced and held her breath, her fingers wrapped desperately around Camila’s arm, wondering if she and Camila would die here, be crushed under the rotting wood of the ceiling in an abandoned building in a suffocating city before either of them had the chance to become rock stars.

 

The roof did not collapse in, only continued to shudder, and Lauren took a tentative step forward. Camila yanked her immediately off balance and to the side and Lauren stumbled over her own feet.

 

“What the—“

 

“Don’t step,” Camila scolded, patting at Lauren’s arm worriedly, and Lauren looked back to see a glint of silver, a rusty nail sticking up that might once have been holding in a floorboard but now there was only plywood.

 

“Shit…” Lauren whispered, searching the wall for the light switch. She wasn’t sure what she was expecting, but when she found it and flipped it up no lights came on.

 

No electricity.

 

It was an abandoned building, of course there was no electricity.

 

Or, not so abandoned, Lauren realized as her eyes adjusted to the darkness.

 

There was what looked like a sleeping bag in the far corner of the room with several cardboard boxes pushed up beside it. Against the opposite wall there was an old couch, only missing one cushion, and a flipped over crate in place of a table. Somewhere to Lauren’s left there was a wet sound, a leaky faucet dripping – running water, Lauren noted dully. How long had Camila been living here?

 

Behind the makeshift sleeping pallet was a closet without a door. A sweatshirt of black and pink and stars was hanging in that closet on the only metal hanger there. A place of honor, Lauren could tell immediately, Camila’s other clothes all folded up neatly on the floorboards.

 

Lauren took a careful step towards the sleeping bag to find familiar green eyes staring at her from the darkness.

 

“Oh,” said Lauren.

 

“Elvis!” cried Camila, and promptly moved to scoop something fluffy up into her arms.

 

Elvis?

 

A black cat with green eyes, staring at Lauren thoughtfully like there was more in her mind than there ever would be in Lauren’s. Just like she always stared at her.

 

“Cat?” Lauren asked.

 

“Elvis,” Camila corrected patiently. “My friend.”

 

“But that’s a cat,” Lauren said stupidly. Camila made a soft purring noise at Cat. The cat. Elvis.

 

“Your roommate is a cat,” Lauren said evenly, eyeing Elvis who was eyeing her right back from his place clutched in Camila’s arms. “You live by yourself in an abandoned building with a stray cat. That’s just freaking wonderful.”

 

Lauren should have known, she really should have. ‘Friend’ was a word that Camila had yet to apply to another human being.

 

Except Lauren.

 

“Not by myself,” Camila protested. “Elvis is here. Michael is here.”

 

Lauren wondered if Michael was a cat, a tombstone, or a star.

 

Staring at the feline in Camila’s arms, the same one she’d been feeding since her grandmother’s death, the same one she had believed to be female, the same one she’d thought was Camila’s roommate, Lauren wondered exactly how many things about Camila she had taken for granted, for the obvious. Things that could not be true because nothing about Camila was obvious.

 

When Camila talked about her friends was it really so crazy to assume those friends would live, breathe, speak, and walk upright?

 

Maybe.

 

“How many secrets do you have?” Lauren wondered aloud. Camila smiled in response and nuzzled Elvis’s short fur.

 

Lauren shook her head, stepping past Camila, who was cooing at Elvis. Something silver next to the sleeping bag caught Lauren’s eye. An iPod was lying next to one of the boxes of Camila’s things. Camila owned an iPod.

 

“You own an iPod,” Lauren observed dumbly. Camila didn’t have electricity but she had an iPod?

 

Camila tilted her head.

 

Lauren walked slowly over to the mattress, careful of missing floorboards and exposed nails, and picked up the small device. It was reflective silver, expensive looking. “iPod,” Lauren repeated, waving it vaguely for Camila to see.

 

Camila nodded knowingly. “It used to sing to me,” she explained.

 

Lauren wondered distantly what kind of music Camila listened to.

 

She set the mp3 player down, noticing a partially open trunk pushed behind the mattress as she did. Lauren frowned and Camila let Elvis jump from her arms and opened the old trunk, stroking its top with loving fingers.

 

Lauren stared down at the trunk’s contents quietly. Things that shined and caught the light, crumpled tinfoil and someone’s silver ring. A quarter. Beer caps and old soda cans and a watch.

 

“This is a Rolex,” Lauren said stupidly, reaching down to pick up the thing with careful fingers. “You don’t have lighting… you don’t have a mattress, but you have an iPod, you have a freaking Rolex?”

 

Lauren stared at Camila incredulously and Camila pouted at her tone.

 

“Michael is working on the lights,” Camila claimed. “He knows a guy.”

 

“What does that mean?” Lauren asked and Camila shrugged like she didn’t know either.

 

“This can’t be safe,” Lauren mumbled as Camila watched her curiously. “Who the hell keeps their Rolex with their trash?”

 

Camila did. Camila did because Camila didn’t see anything as trash. It was all shiny to her and what would Camila care if her watch had diamonds or plastic rhinestones? She would treasure it all the same.

 

“No one bothers you here?” Lauren asked, thinking of the street people outside who could probably make use of the running water and decaying roof and , of corde, the  _Rolex_. “No one comes in and tries to take your shiny things?”

 

“They’re scared,” Camila answered, stroking a piece of tinsel she’d pulled out of the trunk. “Everyone is so afraid, Lauren.”

 

“They’re scared,” Lauren repeated. “What are they scared of?” She looked up to the roof again, wondering if it was safe or only moments away from caving in on them.

 

“Michael will yell,” Camila confided. “And hurt them… I don’t like it when he does that. He never listens to me,” Camila said, a definite whine in her voice.

 

Right. Michael.

 

“Oh” Lauren said, since it was the only thing she could really think to say. She stood abruptly, dropping the watch back into Camila’s trunk of treasures and walking aimlessly across the room, careful of rusty nails.

 

Elvis wandered past Lauren to curl up in a nearby cardboard box with a rumpled hoodie as a cushion. Camila’s hoodie, Lauren realized as the cat turned in careful circles, kneading the fabric with his paws.

 

Elvis was using her sweatshirt, Camila had said.

 

Elvis the cat, was sleeping on Camila’s sweatshirt so Camila could walk around in the rain in tiny sleeveless shirts.

 

“You’re not supposed to be a cat,” Lauren told Elvis accusingly, who was now curled up happily in the box. “Nothing is supposed to be like this.”

 

Elvis yawned wide and showed Lauren no mercy.

 

Nothing was ever how it was supposed to be.

 

“You like my friend,” Camila stated, walking up behind her. Lauren shook her head, opening and closing her mouth, at a loss for what to say.

 

At least, if Elvis was human, he would have been someone who was looking after Camila, someone for Camila to talk to. Not that Camila was above talking to a cat.

 

“I don’t know where I thought you lived,” Lauren said, looking around the broken, lifeless room. Camila herself was so full of magic it was hard to match her up with the desolate building Camila apparently resided in. Camila was brightness and life and passion and laughter, and this place, this place was just dead. “In a castle in the clouds or something. Just… not here.”

 

“Sometimes there are clouds,” Camila said in a tone that Lauren thought was meant to be reassuring. She wondered if she looked like she needed reassurance. “So close to me I can touch them…”

 

“Smog,” Lauren provided, a cold lump in her throat. “That’s smog, Camz.”

 

Camila shrugged. “It’s not so different.”

 

“You would say that.”

 

“Because it’s true,” Camila said, and Lauren couldn’t bring herself to disagree. Camila was so headstrong, when she talked you almost had to believe her.

 

“There’s smog back at my house too,” Lauren offered, shaking her head wildly like maybe she could shake this place out of it, forget she’d ever been here at all. “Let’s go there, okay, now that you’ve seen… Elvis.”

 

Camila agreed easily and moved to pick the cat up, holding it’s small body possessively to her chest. “Elvis too.”

 

Lauren blinked, frowning at the cat squished against Camila’s chest. “You want to bring your cat? Really?”

 

“He’ll be lonely,” Camila said, rolling her eyes at Lauren. “Elvis can’t be lonely.”

 

“Right.” Lauren frowned, having trouble dropping her lingering dislike for the name Elvis and the man she had thought went with it. The man she now felt betrayed by, who did not exist at all, and Camila, alone in this place…

 

Camila blinked at her with wide eyes in the dark, cuddling the cat close.

 

“I guess Elvis can come too.”

 

——-

 

Camila walked bouncily beside her on the way back to Lauren’s house with Elvis in her arms and Lauren tried not to feel incredibly relieved as they got farther away from the condemned buildings. Camila would be coming back tomorrow, after all. Tomorrow and the night after that and the night after that…

 

“What about your mom?” Lauren asked abruptly, remembering Camila’s mention of her in the graveyard. “You said your mom… doesn’t she look after you? Where is she?”

 

Camila turned to glare at her, Elvis giving Lauren a similar unimpressed look from her arms. “I don’t need to be looked after,” Camila told her snappishly.

 

Lauren wasn’t sure if that was true or not. In some ways, Lauren thought someone needed to be following Camila around and making sure she didn’t touch hot stoves or get her hands on anything sharp, but Camila also seemed entirely self sufficient and self satisfied. She did what she wanted to do and she did it happily and she didn’t seem much to care if anyone had a problem with it. If Camila wanted to go through Lauren’s garbage, Camila would and there was really nothing Lauren could do to stop her or to ruin her fun.

 

Maybe Camila didn’t need anyone to hold her hand but Lauren still sort of wanted to anyway.

 

“She doesn’t come to see you?” Lauren asked. Camila only made a small huffing noise, raising her chin and rather obviously giving Lauren the cold shoulder.

 

They walked in silence for awhile, a rare state for Camila. Lauren kicked along a rock and wondered about her friend, wondered how Camila could be… basically homeless, and still be so bright and alive and happy. She seemed more pleased with the world than even Lauren herself was, who had a roof over her head and food to eat and a job she hated and a guitar she couldn’t bring herself to play.

 

If she did play the guitar, who would hear? Not her grandmother, only the walls now, only her empty things. If a tree fell in the forest did it make a sound? If Lauren Jauregui picked up her guitar did it matter?

 

“The stars and so pretty,” Camila said, because Camila could not hold a silence for long. “Do you see them?”

 

“Yeah,” Lauren said, tilting her head towards the sky as they walked.

 

“As pretty as me?” Camila asked, voice full of false coyness.

 

Lauren laughed and played along. “No, nothing is as pretty as you.”

 

Camila hummed a pleasant song.

 

When they reached the house Lauren was oddly disappointed to be there. Camila was happy as ever, though, excited by the blank walls and ugly portraits, showing the light switches to Elvis and interpreting the cat’s silence as approval.

 

“You can sleep here, just like last time, okay?” Lauren said as she led Camila into the guest room and Camila threw herself onto the bed. Lauren thought of the room Camila stayed in, the hole in the drywall and the lack of a mattress or any sort of lock on a door. “It’s safer here.”

 

“Get into bed with me,” Camila invited cheerfully and Lauren choked on the air. She coughed pathetically and Elvis bounded past her and jumped up onto the queen size bed, giving Lauren a knowing look as he went. Camila smiled brightly at the cat.

 

Oh. Right. Elvis. That made more sense than Camila inviting Lauren—

 

“Lolo too?” Camila asked, moving back so there was room for Lauren and patting the soft covers in invitation.

 

“No,” Lauren said between coughs. “No.”

 

Camila pouted and Lauren looked quickly away. The soft light of the bedside lamp illuminating the pale green walls and the thick, luxurious blankets were a shocking contrast to the building Camila had taken her to earlier.

 

 _Stay_ , Lauren wanted to say.  _Stay here and never leave._

 

Lauren would have, almost, but then Camila was pulling her shirt off over her head to change into the pajamas Lauren had left on the bed, the wide expanse of skin she revealed making Lauren’s mouth go dry and useless. Slim shoulders and skin only marred by small, scattered moles.

 

Lauren’s mind went blank. And she felt strangely relieved but disappointed as Camila put on the pajama top.

 

Camila watched her with light eyes, clearly pleased with something. “You’ll see,” Camila promised. “I told you, you would see.”

 

Lauren still wasn’t sure what that meant but she agreed anyway just to see Camila’s already bright smile widen. “Okay, yeah. I’ll see.”


	11. Wish On a Star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

When Lauren woke, Camila was gone.

 

The bed lay empty, the blankets pulled into place. The pajamas Lauren had lent Camila were folded neatly and resting on the floor by the closet.

 

Lauren stared into the empty room, surprised. She had been looking forward to Camila’s company, playing some CDs on the stereo or showing Camila the video game with all the sparkly things and little characters that Lauren had bought because it looked like something Camila would find amusing.

 

Lauren had never thought that Camila might leave while she was asleep. Could Camila really be that anxious to get back to the decaying building she lived in? What was there for her? An expensive watch that was probably stolen, a collection of things others had seen fit to throw away, a sweatshirt, a friend named Michael who had yet to be proven human.

 

Frowning, Lauren shut the guest room door quietly behind her, walking down the hall towards the kitchen. Sadly, Camila was not there either, though several things that had once been in the trash were now sitting innocently on the kitchen counter. A bent spoon, a cracked porcelain flower holder that had belonged to Lauren’s grandmother, an apple core.

 

“What the hell is with the apple cores?” Lauren asked the silence. Her only response was more silence.

 

She picked up the half eaten apple, throwing it up into the air and catching it in her palm again. Lauren was oddly reluctant to throw any of the things she considered garbage back into the trashcan. If they were worth something to Camila…

 

Lauren sighed and set the apple core by the window to dry out, dropped the spoon into the dishwasher, and hung the useless flower holder back on its nail on the wall.

 

When she opened the back door to the porch, bowls of cat food in hand, Lauren was surprised to find Elvis sitting there with six other cats, all watching her impatiently.

 

“Where’s Camila?” Lauren asked the black cat. Elvis watched her with knowing eyes. The harder Lauren looked at him the more she thought Elvis might be raising a superior eyebrow the way Camila did when she thought Lauren was being especially dumb.

 

Lauren winced and set down the cat food in hopes of distracting the cat. “Shut up.”

——-

Lauren waited anxiously that night but Camila never came.

 

She couldn’t force herself to stop waiting though, to give up and go to bed. What if Camila showed up to go through her trash the minute Lauren turned her back? What if she came and Lauren missed her? What if she didn’t ring the doorbell, didn’t alert Lauren of her presence, and Lauren slept through her visit and Camila walked home in the dark and got hit by a car and died on the asphalt and Lauren never knew about it and she just kept waiting but Camila never came because Camila was gone just like everyone else?

 

It was possible.

 

So Lauren waited, and waited, and finally she folded her arms on the windowsill and fell asleep.

 

When she woke again Camila was still not there. It was light out, the sun shining too bright through the window and into Lauren’s eyes. Lauren glared at the hated sun, wincing. She jerked the curtains closed, threw herself down onto the carpet and promptly went back to sleep.

 

Maybe Camila would be there the next time she woke up.

——-

It wasn’t fair, losing Camila twice like that. Lauren was fond of routine and Camila’s routine was that she came to see Lauren every day. Lauren liked that routine. She was used to it, comfortable with it. Every night after work she waited and every night after work Camila came to dig through her trash. That was the deal and Lauren liked it.

 

It was uncomfortable to think that nothing was for sure, that she hadn’t been promised anything and that at any moment Camila could just – disappear.

 

The next day, Lauren spent most of her time glaring at Cocoa’s customers, but that was nothing new, and Normani sighed a lot, but that wasn’t new either.

 

As much as she thought about it, Lauren couldn’t figure out why Camila hadn’t come back. She couldn’t figure out what she’d done to scare Camila off. Lauren hoped she’d scared Camila off, anyway, because she didn’t want to think of any other reason why Camila would have disappeared. Not with the neighborhood she lived in, not with the dangerous streets she walked every day, so damn trusting.

 

Lauren was sure Camila hadn’t said anything about leaving. Some of the things Camila said were still largely incomprehensible to Lauren, but it had been getting easier to understand Camila as time went by. She had her own language – Camilish, Camilanese. Lauren was proud to be learning it, wondered if anyone else spoke the language that was Camila’s words, all mixed up and straight out of her head.

 

Finally, on the second lonely night after Camila had disappeared, Lauren gave in to the suffocating need to see Camila again and got into her car, flashlight in hand. She drove towards the slums in the dull darkness that was Los Angeles at night, tapping a nervous finger against the dashboard as she drove.

 

The building Camila stayed in was not hard to find. Its crumbling bricks and shattered windows were ingrained in the dark corners of Lauren’s mind no matter how much she would have liked to forget them.

 

The streetlight was flickering but easy enough to see by. Lauren found the hole in the fence and pushed her way through it. She winced as a sharpened point of the twisted metal scraped against her bare arm, stinging. It was really painful and Lauren regretted leaving her jacket at home. When she stopped a moment to rub at the injury, she noticed her fingers coming away wet. Lauren gagged and rubbed her hand off on her tight jeans. She continued forward quickly, finding the broken window in the back of the building and managing to lift herself through it without further injury. It wasn’t easy and Lauren wondered how Camila did it every day, if she had scars marring her skin from the twisted metal of the fence or the sharp shards of glass still left in the window frame.

 

“Camila?” Lauren called into the empty first floor of the building. She flipped on the flashlight, illuminating the floor as she moved carefully forward, cautious of rusty nails. She wondered if Camila had ever stepped on one.

 

Lauren placed a testing foot on the first step of the staircase she knew led up to the room Camila slept in. It creaked and she winced, testing her weight on the thing and determining it stable enough to take another step.

 

If Camila could do it, so could Lauren.

 

“I know you’re here,” Lauren called when she’d managed to make her way up the stairs to the room Camila stayed in. She pushed the door open and cringed as it creaked on rusty, unstable hinges. “I know you’re here,” she called louder and wished it were true.

 

Camila wasn’t there.

 

The room was empty except for beaten furniture. No stray cats wandered past as Lauren walked cautiously over to the sleeping bag in the corner. She stared hard at the dark material, illuminating it with her flashlight, but Lauren had no way of knowing if Camila had slept there tonight, if Camila had slept there any night.

 

Camila’s collection of sparkly things in the trunk by the sleeping pallet caught the light, reflecting harshly back. The watch was still there, lying innocently between a piece of tinfoil and a stick of gum still in its wrapper. Lauren was still unsure of why tinfoil would mean anything to Camila, but all the same she accepted that it did in fact mean something to her and maybe that was all that mattered.

 

When Lauren moved the flashlight to examine the rest of the room it looked the same except this time it didn’t have Camila in it. The room seemed more dull as a result, plain and broken. The only difference, besides Camila’s absence was the closet – the closet in which a pink and black sweatshirt was no longer hanging.

 

Lauren snorted softly and felt a fond smile pulling at her lips.

 

She thought about waiting in the empty building beneath the precarious roof but it seemed more likely to Lauren that Camila would show up at her own home before she showed up here. Lauren would rather Camila showed up at her home than here.

 

With a final look around the empty room Lauren turned her back on the lifeless place.

 

Outside it was getting cold and Lauren could hear the siren to an ambulance somewhere not so far away. She stood on the cracked cement in front of the decaying building and wondered if the stars knew where Camila had gone.

 

She tilted her head back, staring up into the sky. The stars didn’t speak to Lauren the same way they spoke to Camila though, and when Lauren looked up to them all she saw was darkness.

 

“I’d like her back now,” Lauren said to the black sky anyway.

——-

The house was quiet. The world was quiet.

 

Lauren had never longed for conversation so much before.

 

Not even conversation, really. Just, Camila’s voice, Camila talking about strange things that Lauren would probably never grasp, Camila and her stars and her graves and her magic.

 

The silence was so loud it rang in Lauren’s ears, making her deaf. She opened her mouth to ask Camila if the silence was too loud for her too, because Camila would probably appreciate the sentiment, but Camila was not there.

 

Another day passed. Lauren tried not to wonder what Camila was doing as she poured a coffee, what Camila was doing as the songs on Lauren’s iPod changed, what Camila was doing as another customer ran out Cocoa’s front door with his tail between his legs and the bells jingling cheerfully behind him.

 

Lauren slept and went to work and came home and almost wished she could go back to work again. The house was empty and quiet and still, still not really Lauren’s, still her grandmother’s house.

 

She did not know what to do with herself within its walls, could not remember what she’d done before she’d met Camila.

 

The clock ticked and Lauren counted the seconds.

 

She counted all her beanies. She counted the spiders in the corners. She counted the water stains on the ceiling. She counted the channels on the television. She counted her beanies again. She thought about pouring out the salt container to count the grains of salt.

 

She put a frozen steak in the oven. It crackled. It burned. The fire alarm went off.

 

She counted the ear piercing beeps.

 

86… 87… 88…

 

“Fire!” someone screeched, louder even than the fire alarm. Mrs. Smith came crashing in through the front door, dressed only in a bathrobe. She did not appear to have a fire extinguisher with her or anything else that would put out a fire. Lauren wondered if she was just there to watch her burn. “Run!”

 

“You’re making me lose count,” Lauren complained, giving the panicked woman a spiteful glare. “Now I have to start over.”

 

“Run, you foolish girl!” Mrs. Smith cried, reaching out to grab her by the arm, trying to jerk her off the floor where Lauren was watching the oven smoke. “There’s a… a… fire?”

 

Lauren rolled her eyes and waved vaguely towards the oven.

 

“Oh.” Mrs. Smith blinked a few times, glancing between Lauren and the smoking oven, clearly disappointed. A fire in the neighborhood would have been the highlight of her week, Lauren was sure.

 

Mrs. Smith grumbled something that couldn’t have been complimentary and slapped Lauren on the arm before walking over to turn the oven off. She watched her silently as she climbed up onto a chair, pressing the button on the fire alarm so there was only silence once again.

 

Lauren frowned and immediately began to miss the noise.

 

“Even your grandmother was not so terrible a cook,” Mrs. Smith accused, trying to wave the smoke from the air with her bony hand. “Preposterous.”

 

“And you didn’t like her either,” Lauren pointed out cynically. “Just like you don’t like me, just like you don’t like your husband, just like you don’t like Camila… you don’t like Camila.”

 

Mrs. Smith scoffed. “I certainly don’t  _like_ —“

 

Lauren was on her feet before she could finish the thought, looming over her small form so her eyes went wide. “What did you do?” She clenched her fingers hard to keep them off her.

 

Mrs. Smith stared at her with wide eyes. “I’m sure I don’t know—“

 

“Where is she? I know it’s your fault. What did you say to her?” Lauren couldn’t remember ever feeling so angry before. Her teeth mashed together and her jaw ached and she imagined what she would do to Mrs. Smith if her grandmother hadn’t been the sort of woman she was.

 

Mrs. Smith glared harshly, recovering from her momentary surprise and lifting her pointy chin defiantly. “I have not spoken to or seen your homeless…  _friend_  in days, nor do I wish to.”

 

She stared at her with beady eyes and Lauren winced and deflated again, moving to collapse back onto a chair. “Oh.”

 

She blinked at her a few times, staring at faded bathrobe. It was covered in polka dots. Lauren started to count them.

 

Mrs. Smith frowned hard and gave her a look that was incongruous on her face. On anyone else, Lauren might have called it concern. On Mrs. Smith it just looked painful.

  
“I…” She trailed off, seeming confused. Lauren watched her; curious if the woman was capable of any emotion other than spite. “I… You should mow your lawn,” she finally came up with, squaring her shoulders and setting her jaw. “It’s atrocious, a dark mark on a respectable neighborhood. Honestly, Miss Jauregui!”

 

Apparently not. The woman huffed and turned on her heel, marching out the front door and allowing it to slam dramatically behind her.

——-

That night Lauren found herself standing outside the door to the guest room, having momentarily abandoned her watch by the window.

 

She reached for the doorknob hesitantly, unsure. It was, she told herself, her guest room, her house. She could go in if she wanted to. It wasn’t an invasion of privacy – it wasn’t even Camila’s room. Camila didn’t live there.

 

Lauren grasped the knob firmly in her hand and pulled the door open.

 

The room looked exactly the same as it always had, exactly the same as Camila had left it when she’d gone… wherever it was she had gone. The bed was made, Lauren’s pajamas still folded up neatly on the floor by the closet.

 

Lauren stepped through the doorway, staring at the pale walls and the fluffy blankets, so ordinary. She tilted her head, trying to imagine what Camila had seen when she looked at them, wondering what the world looked like to Camila. Everything Camila saw, she seemed to find magic in. Lauren could stare until her eyes bled but she didn’t think she’d ever see it.

 

The walls were just walls, the carpet was just a carpet, the bed was just a bed – a bed Camila had slept in.

 

Lauren walked over to the bed and sat down, running her fingers over the soft blankets and wondering what they felt like to Camila. She wondered if the luxurious linen was as different from a sleeping bag as Lauren thought it was, or if Camila saw the sleeping bag as something special and unique just like she saw everything as special and unique.

 

Probably.

 

Lauren flopped down on the bed, her long messy locks against the pillow as she stared up at the blank, water stained ceiling – three water stains in this room, Lauren had counted – and wondered what Camila saw there when she stared up at the same ceiling. Did she see stars in the grooves of plaster? Did that water stain look like a cloud?

Lauren closed her eyes and counted sheep.

——-

Lauren had never slept beside Camila. She’d never shared a bed with Camila, though Camila had invited her. She wished now she’d taken the opportunity when it had been offered to her.

 

Still, when Lauren woke, her nose buried in a pillow that smelled like what Lauren supposed was Camila, she reached out an uncoordinated arm, expecting her fingers to find Camila there, sleeping in the same bed.

 

Her fingers only met air, cold and drafty, and Lauren blinked herself awake, oddly confused. Where was Camila?

 

Not there.

 

“Crap.” Lauren let her hand flop back down onto the covers.

 

She groaned and pushed herself up onto her elbows, the dark room around her, strange and unfamiliar. Even as a child, Lauren had never slept in the guest room. She’d always had her own room at her grandmother’s house, the same one she slept in now even though she was gone.

 

The clock by the bed was glaring at her, big bright numbers declaring the time 2:08 AM. Lauren rubbed her eyes tiredly, wondering what had woken her. There were no sounds in the house, just like there had not been for days, but Lauren rolled out of bed anyway, walking down the hall towards the family room to check, again, if Camila was there.

 

Lauren could not help but worry for Camila. Camila, alone inside her head – which was far from empty, but still Lauren worried. She could not bring herself to think of Camila interacting with people who did not know her, people who would not see the magic that was Camila and would only see a strange looking girl who confused them, people who had no respect or understanding of how amazing Camila was. Lauren’s stomach was in anxious knots as she looked again out the family room window worriedly.

 

Lauren didn’t expect Camila to be there, which probably was why Camila was.

 

She looked outside, expecting darkness when instead there was light. The motion sensor light was on.

 

Lauren froze, staring out into her brightly lit front yard, watching the movement near her trashcan with wide eyes.

 

“Holy shit,” Lauren muttered, and then she was running out the front door, down the steps and towards Camila who was standing there in her black and purple hoodie with a nameless piece of garbage in one hand. “Camila!”

 

Camila shifted, looking up to Lauren with surprised eyes. “Yes.”

 

“Camila,” Lauren repeated because it was the only thing she could think to say. She hooked her fingers desperately around Camila’s wrist, pulling her into a hug that Lauren couldn’t even convince herself was friendly but indifferent. Not even close. She buried her face in Camila’s shoulder, her fingers clawing at Camila’s back. “Camz.”

 

“Good morning,” Camila greeted, patting Lauren’s head in a strangely reassuring motion.

  
“Good morning,” Lauren greeted back. “You left. Where were you?”

 

“I was chasing the stars,” Camila answered seriously, pulling curiously on a strand of Lauren’s messy hair now. “Where were you?”

 

Lauren snorted against Camila’s shoulder. “I was right here. I missed you,” she admitted, though it was probably fairly obvious by the death grip Lauren had on Camila. “Why did you leave? You’re not supposed to leave.”

 

“Absence makes the heart grow fonder,” Camila told her. “Are you fond of me yet?”

 

“You know I am,” Lauren breathed.

 

Camila smiled, bright and happy, pleased with herself or pleased with Lauren or just pleased with the world in general. Lauren grinned stupidly back, the muscles in her face pulling weirdly.

 

“I saw friends,” Camila offered. “They want to meet you too. They like you.”

 

All of Camila’s friends seemed to like Lauren. “None of your friends are like you and me, are they Camz?”

 

“No one is like Lolo,” Camila agreed easily, combing her fingers through Lauren’s hair, which she seemed to be fascinated by.

 

“Okay… but, humans. None of your friends are humans. None of your friends look out for you. None of your friends talk to you.”

 

Camila glared and tugged hard at Lauren’s hair, clearly offended by the statement. “They all talk to me. Even the trees. I bet the trees don’t talk to you.”

 

Lauren winced, pulling her hair from Camila’s fingers and stepping back a bit. “No, I guess they don’t,” she admitted.

 

Lauren still wondered, though. She wondered how a person, a person who seemed to love to talk and communicate and interact as much as Camila did, could live their life with almost no real human interaction. Only, apparently, the trees.

 

“Michael stays with me,” Camila offered when Lauren said nothing.

 

Lauren shook her head. “But  _human beings_ , Camila. Not the stars or the shiny things…”

 

“He’ll be back soon,” Camila said a bit hollowly, eyes going slightly unfocused the way they sometimes did.

 

“Michael?” Lauren asked, beginning to wonder if perhaps the name really did belong to a person. It was a dangerous thought. With Camila things were never the way Lauren thought they would be.

 

Camila nodded, looking a bit lost. “Or… maybe I was supposed to go see him?”

 

“Were you?” Lauren asked as she pulled Camila away from the trash and towards the house. Camila followed easily, staring at the walls and the carpeting like it was amazing to her, brilliant and special, just as Camila always did.

 

“Was I?” Camila asked, turning to focus intently on Lauren curiously.

 

Lauren bit her lip, unsure. “How would I know?”

 

“You’re Lauren.” Camila said it like it meant something, staring at her with trusting eyes.

 

“Yeah.” Lauren swallowed, a hesitant smile on her lips. “I guess I am.”

 

Her name had never really meant anything before. It seemed that it did now, and if it meant something to Camila, Lauren figured she’d have to live up to that.

 

“When was the last time you saw Michael?” Lauren encouraged, pushing Camila so they were both sitting on the couch in the family room, the same one Lauren had been waiting on, sleeping on for the last days, waiting for Camila to come back.

 

“Monday,” Camila answered, which would have been a weirdly specific answer for her, except that to Camila ‘Monday’ could have been any day.

 

“This Monday?”

 

“Some Monday.”

 

Lauren ran the pads of her fingers worriedly over Camila’s face. She seemed cheerful, as Camila almost always did, but she had dark circles under her eyes and her cheeks were a bit hollow. Lauren wondered if Camila took breaks from chasing the stars to eat or sleep.

 

Camila yawned and nuzzled Lauren’s fingers and Lauren smiled affectionately. “Tired?”

 

“So are you,” Camila accused sleepily, which was true enough. Lauren had never been so happy to be awake in the middle of the night, though.

 

Lauren stood, tugging at Camila’s arm so she would follow her and leading Camila towards the guest bedroom. The blankets were rumpled from Lauren’s tossing and turning. Camila made a pleased sound at the sight of the bed and crawled down onto it, no complaints about Elvis being lonely or the stars missing her.

 

“Do you like it here?” Lauren asked her, standing awkwardly over the bed as Camila nuzzled the same pillow Lauren had been resting on earlier.

 

“Yes,” Camila told her easily.

 

“That’s good,” Lauren said, because it was, and then she crawled onto the bed with Camila.

 

Camila rolled over to blink at her with sleepy eyes, a sparkle in them that said Camila did not mind the company at all. She reached out with one hand and grabbed Lauren’s hand in her own, placing their entwined fingers on the pillow between them.

 

“Stay,” Lauren said, not sure if it was a question or a command but sure that Camila would interpret it however she pleased. “Stay here. Stay with me. Please stay.”

 

Camila hummed pleasantly, squeezing Lauren’s hand. Lauren squeezed back.

 

Camila stayed, after that.


	12. The Opposite of Broken

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

There was hair in Lauren’s mouth.

 

“…gurgfk,” said Lauren, batting at the offending hair. Her fingers caught soft skin instead, the curve of an ear.

 

The bed shifted strangely below and Lauren blinked herself awake.

 

Even in sleep, Lauren had not forgotten that Camila was there. Even as she dreamed, she was always subconsciously aware of Camila’s presence, the warmth of Camila’s body close to her, closer, closer. So Lauren could not say she was all that shocked to wake up with Camila beside her. Pleasantly surprised, but not shocked.

 

Lauren had not, however, expected Camila to be quite as close as she was. Camila’s hair was spread out in a brown, silky sheet over her shoulder and directly in front of Lauren’s face, the tips of her long hair ticking Lauren’s nose. Camila was cuddled as close to Lauren on the bed as humanly possible without clinging like a limpet. One of Camila’s feet was hooked around Lauren’s, and Camila’s fingers were still threaded through her.

 

Lauren blew the hair from her lips, rolling slightly away and untangling her foot. Camila huffed and when Lauren tried to unhook her fingers from Camila’s, she gave a sleepy whine and woke, blinking up at Lauren fuzzily, confused.

 

“Good morning,” Lauren said, voice unintentionally soft as Camila fluttered her eyelashes, staring at Lauren like she wasn’t quite sure how Lauren had got there.

 

“Lolo?” Camila asked, sounding strangely unsure of herself.

 

“Yeah.” Lauren found herself smiling because Camila wasn’t, and one of them should, right? “Lolo.”

 

Camila’s face broke out into a responding grin and she clenched her fingers tighter around Lauren’s. “Lolo! Good morning!”

 

“I think that might be the first time it’s actually been morning when you’ve said that,” Lauren observed, not all put off when Camila wouldn’t let her have her hand back.

 

Camila hardly seemed concerned by the time of day. She watched Lauren with fondness, her eyes bright for such an early hour. There were creases from the fabric of the pillow on Camila’s cheek, her hair uncombed and her lips dry and chapped looking. Lauren watched her back, feeling just as fond and with hair just as messy as Camila’s.

 

“Oh!” Camila’s eyes went big suddenly and she bit nervously as her bottom lip as she reached for something. Camila’s fingers met Lauren’s forearm and Lauren turned as Camila ran her thumb in a soothing motion against Lauren’s skin.

 

“Don’t hurt,” Camila said. “I won’t let you hurt.”

 

“What?” Camila’s eyes were big and worried, maybe scared. Lauren would have reached out to… something. To comfort her, but Camila had her fingers wrapped desperately around Lauren’s arm and Lauren didn’t think she’d appreciate her moving it away.

 

Camila ran the pads of her fingers over Lauren’s skin, making her shiver and recoil in turn. The shallow cut from the night before stung as Camila touched it and when Lauren flinched away involuntarily, Camila flinched back too.

 

“Sorry!” Camila responded immediately, hand frozen in the air above Lauren’s arm, clenching and unclenching awkwardly. “Sorry. I’m sorry.”

 

“It’s just a cut,” Lauren assured her, because Camila seemed truly worried, unsure of herself in a way Lauren rarely ever saw her. “Hey, it’s okay.” She grabbed Camila’s hand again, cupping her fingers and stroking Camila’s knuckles with her thumb in an imitation of Camila herself.

 

Lauren had never known how to comfort another person before but maybe Camila could teach her.

 

“I’ll fix it,” Camila said with wide eyes, slipping out of the bed before Lauren could stop her. “Come here, I’ll fix you.”

 

“I’m not broken,” Lauren protested but stumbled out of the bed – which no longer seemed as comfortable without Camila’s presence beside her – anyway.

 

“You’re not supposed to be broken,” Camila told her seriously, wrapping her fingers around Lauren’s wrist and pulling her towards the bathroom. “You’re my soulmate, you can’t be broken.”

 

That was new.

 

Lauren stared hard at Camila and was suddenly unable to remember what they’d been talking about before  _You_ _’_ _re my soulmate._

 

“Lauren _._ ” Camila frowned at her, worried and clearly annoyed by Lauren’s inattention. “You’re  _bleeding_.”

 

“And you want to fix it,” Lauren said slowly. “Because I’m your soulmate.” Camila nodded. “And I’m not supposed to be broken.” Camila nodded again.

 

Well, at least they were on the same page. Lauren wasn’t sure they were reading the same book, but at least they were on the same page.

 

Lauren slowly pulled out the first aid kit and opened it to hand Camila a Band-aid. “Okay.”

 

Camila scoffed and dropped the Band-aid on the countertop, pulling a piece of gauze out of the first aid kit instead. Lauren watched in silence as Camila got the gauze damp and pulled Lauren’s arm into her gentle fingers, patting at the cut seriously as if she was treating a major injury and not a scrape.

 

“You do this a lot?” Lauren asked jokingly, and then realized in all likelihood she might be closer to the truth than she was comfortable with. Camila ignored her.

 

The cut stung as Camila cleaned it but her fingers were gentle and caring, and Lauren didn’t mind that much. She couldn’t remember the last time someone had cared for her.

 

Camila made a quiet whining noise as the dried blood on Lauren’s arm was re-wet, rusty and metallic smelling. She cringed and patted more diligently at Lauren’s arm.

 

“You don’t like blood,” Lauren observed. Camila frowned harder but paid her no mind. “I don’t either,” Lauren admitted. “It grosses me out.”

 

Camila huffed and muttered worriedly to herself as he patted Lauren’s arm dry with the other edge of the gauze, reaching for the Band-aid. Lauren chuckled fondly at her serious expression and Camila gave her an indignant look.

 

“Sorry,” Lauren said, not sorry at all. Camila raised an eyebrow, clearly on to her.

 

“Don’t break,” Camila told her when Lauren was bandaged to her satisfaction and she stepped back to examine Lauren worriedly.

 

“I’m not broken.” Lauren reached out the arm with the small cut on it to show Camila it worked, and then touched Camila’s hair softly with her fingers, stroking the side of Camila’s head in the way Camila always seemed to like. “I promise.”

 

“You promise,” Camila repeated, nodding so her hair threaded through Lauren’s fingers.

 

“I promise,” Lauren repeated, and resolved to be more careful. She wasn’t a liar, after all.

 

When they went down to the kitchen for breakfast and Lauren opened the door to feed the cats, Elvis was there, staring up at her like the stray did every morning.

 

Camila clapped her hands together excitedly from behind Lauren and promptly threw herself into Lauren’s arms for a hug.

 

“Camila!” Lauren tipped back a bit and almost dropped the cat food. She stood frozen in surprise for a short moment, unsure how to respond. Just as she was reaching out to pat Camila on the back, Camila was pulling away.

 

“Thank you, Lolo,” Camila said, staring at Lauren with adoring eyes.

 

Lauren blinked back at her, thrown off by the excited hug and almost wishing Camila hadn’t pulled away. She nodded slowly. “You’re welcome, Camila.”

 

Lauren didn’t see why she couldn’t let Camila go on believing that Lauren had called her cat from the deepest, darkest corners of the universe for her. Camila was happy and it wasn’t as if Elvis was going to tell on Lauren. Besides, Lauren liked it when Camila looked at her like that – like Lauren was the center of her world, magical and wonderful and worthwhile.

 

Elvis prowled happily into the house, rubbing against Camila’s ankle as he went, and Lauren went about finding something for breakfast.

 

Camila was more pleased with her food than she had ever been before. When Lauren asked Camila to pass the salt, Camila happily handed her the ketchup. Lauren shrugged and put that on her potatoes instead. It wasn’t half bad.

 

“So, this soulmate thing…” Lauren prompted when breakfast was ending, twirling a fork in her hand.

 

Camila looked at her curiously, stuffing the last half of her roll into her mouth like a chipmunk and clearly expecting Lauren to continue.

 

“What does, um, what does being a soulmate entail, exactly?”

 

Camila looked severely pleased with Lauren’s perceived acceptance of the role. “You’ll see,” Camila told her, reaching across the table to snatch Lauren’s roll off her plate. “I told you, remember?”

 

“I remember,” Lauren confirmed, staring at her empty plate and wondering if sacrificing the last bite of breakfast was part of being a soulmate.

 

Camila hummed happily as she applied ridiculous amounts of butter to the roll. Lauren figured it was kind of worth it.

——-

Camila settled in comfortably to Lauren’s home in a matter of hours, like she’d belonged there all along.

 

Maybe she had.

 

Lauren gave her the grand tour of the house and Camila seemed to find all parts of it fascinating and meaningful, just as Camila always did. She was entranced by the light switches and impressed with the door knobs. She was even enthralled by the nails protruding from the walls where pictures had once hung, which were rusted and no longer shiny so Lauren didn’t see the appeal.

 

Everything seemed to have some meaning to Camila and as much as Lauren looked, she couldn’t quite see it.

 

“I don’t use this room,” Lauren said as she led Camila down the hallway, tapping the door to the master bedroom – her grandmother’s bedroom – as they walked past it. Camila stopped short to stare at the closed door, fascinated by its mystery, perhaps.

 

Lauren had closed the door to her grandmother’s bedroom the day she’d inherited the house and hadn’t opened it since. A year passed. The door stayed shut.

 

“You think it’s empty,” Camila told her when Lauren reluctantly stopped to stare at the cold door as well.

 

“No,” Lauren denied. “It’s not empty. My guitar’s in there, and furniture… I just don’t use it.”

 

Camila sighed, looking at Lauren like she found her to be just about the most frustrating creature on the planet. Which wasn’t possible, because that position had to belong to Camila herself.

 

By the time Lauren had shown Camila around the house and watched her have disjointed conversations with two portraits, Lauren was already an hour late for her shift at Cocoa’s.

 

“Are you going to be all right if I go to work?” Lauren asked, and then immediately jerked to her feet as Camila picked up a chef’s knife and held it close to her face, tilting it in the sunlight so the light reflected off its surface.

 

“Please be careful with that,” Lauren begged, wrapping her fingers around the handle of the blade over Camila’s. “You’re not allowed to break either.”

 

Camila let her take the knife easily and smiled at Lauren approvingly before she went back to exploring the kitchen. Lauren sighed in relief and set the knife on the counter just in time for Camila to flip the switch to turn on the garbage disposal.

 

The disposal rumbled to life and Lauren screeched and tripped over her still untied laces to flip it back off. Camila glanced from Lauren to the sink and back to Lauren again a few times, like she wasn’t quite sure if she was disturbed by the loud noise or enthralled with it.

 

Lauren called in sick to work.

——-

Camila was stretched out on the floor in the family room – which already seemed to be her favorite room – flipping through Lauren’s CDs and examining the artwork in their booklets closely. She was barefoot, dressed in some of Lauren’s clothes that looked a little too big on Camila. Her hair was damp and ruffed from a shower and she was rubbing the soles of her feet idly against the carpet as she sang softly to herself in lyrics that didn’t make any sort of logical sense. No sense outside of Camila’s world, anyway.

 

It may have been a sign of how far Lauren had been pulled into Camila’s world that she almost understood them.

 

“You’re going to stay,” Lauren said abruptly as Camila sucked on a damp tip of her hair. Camila looked up to watch Lauren semi-curiously. Lauren shifted anxiously. “I mean, you’re going to stay, right? You said you would. Stay.”

 

“Yes,” Camila said easily and then glanced away from Lauren to a picture of the booklet again.

 

“We should get your stuff.” Lauren watched as Camila flipped the booklet sideways to examine the artwork that way. She wondered if it looked better that way, if there was more magic in it when viewed from a different angle. “Your clothes. Your box of shiny things.”

 

Camila nodded, abandoning the booklet to stare up at Lauren. A drop of water rolled down the side of her face. “And my bows,” Camila added.

 

“And your bows,” Lauren agreed, smiling fondly. “What would you do without your bows?”

 

Camila frowned, disturbed by the thought. “I wouldn’t be very pretty,” she mused.

 

“You still would be,” Lauren reassured her. Lauren didn’t generally go around calling things ‘pretty’ but she figured she could make an exception for Camila. Camila was always the exception.

 

They walked to the old building together, Camila singing her disjointed lyrics and Lauren providing the beat by patting her hands against her legs and occasionally making weird noises with her mouth – which Camila seemed to find delightful every time.

 

Even after the heat of the moment had passed, Camila did not seem disturbed or even surprised by Lauren’s asking her to stay. It seemed that Lauren herself was more worried about the whole thing even though Camila was the one changing residences – if the abandoned building Camila lived in could be considered a ‘residence,’ anyway.

 

But then Camila rarely seemed worried about anything at all. Lauren was probably already growing gray hair trying to make up for it.

 

What surprised Lauren the most was that Camila did not protest about her friends. She didn’t complain about not being there for Elvis – granted, the last time Lauren had seen Elvis, the cat had been curled up quite happily in her laundry basket – and she made no mention at all of Michael.

 

Lauren didn’t ask. In all possibility Michael might be a streetlight or a tree or someone’s old shoelaces that Camila had found some magic in. Lauren wasn’t going to lose Camila to an inanimate object. And if Michael really was human… Well, he wasn’t around, and Camila said she would stay with Lauren, so that was that. Finders keepers.

 

“I’m being careful,” Lauren said as she stepped cautiously through the hole in the fence beside the abandoned building. Camila watched her warily.

 

Lauren cringed as Camila slipped through the open window, the glass too close to her fragile skin. Lauren managed to do the same without being cut, much to her relief. Camila had quickly moved on from tending to Lauren’s scrape that morning but Camila was still giving the Band-aid occasional concerned looks. Camila was so rarely disturbed by anything, Lauren hated the thought of upsetting her over something so small.

 

The inside of the building was the same as it ever was. Dirty and decaying, the roof shuddering and the stairs creaking. Dull and lacking any of the uniqueness that always surrounded Camila. Lauren stepped carefully around exposed nails, cringing as Camila walked gracefully forward without even looking where she stepped.

 

Camila’s worldly possessions consisted mostly of clothing and a lot of things Lauren knew Camila had collected simply because they were shiny and therefore irresistible to her.

 

“Do you want to bring the sleeping bag?” Lauren asked, staring down at the fraying fabric of the place where Camila had slept for who knew how long. She nudged the bag with her foot and discovered an exposed nail not three inches from where Camila’s head would have rested. Lauren winced and backed away quickly. “You don’t need it.”

 

Camila paid the sleeping bad little mind. She was more attached to her empty soda cans and beer caps than she was to the place she had slept in, which probably should have worried Lauren. It was impractical, but then of all the things that Camila was, practical was certainly not one of them.

 

It was all right, Lauren would be there to make sure Camila didn’t trade her life away for magic beans.

 

Looking up at the building as they made their way out onto the street again Lauren took pleasure in knowing it would be the last time she’d ever have to be there, the last time _Camila_  would have to be there. Lauren wouldn’t let her come back here.

 

“Are we going home now?” Camila asked, her trunk of collected treasures in her arms.

 

Lauren watched her with an unfamiliar feeling in her chest that had been growing since the first time she’d seen Camila standing in her front yard and making a mess of her trash. “Yeah,” Lauren said, forcing her voice to remain light. “We’re going home.”

 

Lauren wasn’t sure she’d ever referred to her grandmother’s house as home before.

 

Camila didn’t turn around to give the building a last glance as they walked away.

——-

Sleeping in the same bed with Camila by accident was one thing. Lauren could tell herself that it was the exhaustion that had allowed her to fall asleep there. She could tell herself that it was just how much she’d missed Camila and she’d wanted to keep an eye on her, even in her sleep with both eyes closed.

 

One night falling asleep in a bed with Camila was one thing, making a conscious decision to do it again was something completely different.

 

Camila frowned disapprovingly from her place in the doorway, Lauren’s pajamas were a bit too big for Camila, her pants hanging off her hips and her shirt collar revealing slim shoulders. “Come to bed, Lolo,” Camila said again, clearly miffed at finding Lauren spread out on her own bed and not in the guest room with Camila.

 

“I am in bed,” Lauren explained, waving vaguely towards the pillow and the teddy bear lying on its side against it. “I sleep in here.”

 

“We could sleep in here,” Camila allowed, giving the room a cursory glance.

 

Lauren shook her head, watching Camila pull at the collar of her too big shirt worriedly. “You have your bed and I have mine,” Lauren explained. “Different beds.”

 

Camila stared at Lauren with big, deeply confused eyes. “I get cold,” she said earnestly. “I don’t like to be cold, Lolo.”

 

Lauren stared.

 

Camila stuck out her lower lip and gave Lauren a sad look.

 

Then she shivered.

 

It wasn’t really giving in, Lauren decided as Camila crawled happily into her bed.

 

What kind of friend would Lauren be if she let Camila get cold?

 

Lauren pulled the blanket over Camila’s shoulder and Camila smiled, looking deeply satisfied with herself and humming happily. Lauren chuckled and figured it was okay if Camila won tonight. They were both winning, if Lauren was honest with herself.

 

She rested her head on the opposite side of the single pillow and let her eyes fall shut for a moment, surprisingly drowsy, warm and safe. “Good night.”

 

“Good morning.”

 

Lauren smiled into her – their – pillow, blinking herself awake to watch Camila for a moment. “Do you ever say good night?” she asked, curious.

 

Camila frowned and seemed to have to think about this for a moment. “No,” she said finally. Lauren waited, but Camila offered no explanation, just moved impossibly closer to Lauren on the bed, their foreheads almost touching and Camila’s breath hot against Lauren’s cheek.

 

Lauren figured that was okay. Maybe there didn’t always need to be an explanation for the things Camila did, maybe it was just the fact that she did them at all that gave them meaning.


	13. Don't Fall, Jump

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

After Camila’s first night sleeping in Lauren’s bed, she seemed to have made the decision that they were ready for the next step in their cuddling relationship.

 

Camila clung like a limpet.

 

Lauren breathed into her skin and tried not to cling back.

——-

It took Lauren all of two days to lose Camila.

 

Camila had taken Lauren’s invitation to move into her house as an invitation to move into Lauren’s space as well. If Lauren was in a room Camila was there too – cuddling up to Lauren in the bedroom and eating all of the corn chips in the kitchen and laughing at the television in the living room when no one had made a joke. She was constant noise, even when she was silent, and Lauren sort of really liked it that way. On the rare occasion that Camila wandered off Lauren found herself following Camila.

 

Lauren had been living alone since she’d moved out of her parents house over a year ago. Strangely, she couldn’t say she minded sharing her space with Camila, she couldn’t even say she didn’t like it. Camila made the air electric, she made the walls interesting, she made the warmth comfortable.

 

So when Lauren stepped out of the shower and Camila did not come wandering over from conversing with the portraits or reorganizing the furniture – to give the room  _flow_ , as she said – Lauren worried.

 

“Camz,” she called into the sudden silence. Camila did not call back from anywhere in the house, no doors banged open, no floorboards creaked. “Camila?”

 

Lauren’s heart thudded painfully in her chest, blood rushing loudly through her ears. She walked through the house, resisting the urge to call Camila’s name constantly like the worried owner of a lost pet. Lauren stopped short before the door to her grandmother’s old bedroom, staring hard at its cold surface and wondering if Camila really would have wandered in there, if the house would be so silent if she had.

 

She reached hesitantly for the doorknob, biting her bottom lip nervously. Her fingers touched the cold metal, flinching slightly as they did.

 

Something creaked above and Lauren jerked back from the door abruptly. She spun around too quickly, deciding to check outside instead. Maybe Camila had gone to commune with the sky or the trees.

 

Camila wasn’t in the backyard and at first glance she wasn’t in the front, either. Lauren couldn’t stop herself from breathing too harshly, suddenly dizzy, as she wandered across the lawn, standing under the lone tree in the front yard and looking up through its branches, wondering if Camila liked to climb trees. It seemed like something she would do.

 

Camila wasn’t in the tree. Lauren kicked at an exposed root lamely to punish it.

 

“I keep losing you,” Lauren said to no one, because Camila was not there.

 

“You shouldn’t kick trees,” Camila called. “They have feelings too.”

 

Lauren laughed, startled, and let her shoulders sag in relief as she spun around. “What are you, protector of tree rights? And – and oh God, get down from there!”

 

Camila had not climbed the tree. Camila had climbed the house.

 

She was sitting quite contently on the roof, her hands planted behind her so she could lean back and watch Lauren with an indulgent smile. Her legs were spread out before her and her converse were almost close enough to the edge of the roof to hang off.

 

“You should come up,” Camila offered instead, completely missing the point, or perhaps ignoring it like only Camila could.

 

“I always knew you were a crazy person,” Lauren said, unable to control her panic. “But I did not know you were a  _suicidal_  crazy person!”

 

“You’re just scared,” Camila told her, perfectly calmly, as if death was not imminent. “I can see the stars from here.”

 

It was hardly past noon. The stars weren’t even out yet. Such trivialities would never have concerned Camila. “Roofs are not for stargazing!”

 

“Yes,” Camila agreed, but did not look at all interested in climbing down.

 

Lauren swallowed around the lump in her throat, taking a useless step towards the house like she’d be able to reach Camila at all from that height. “How did you get up there?”

 

“You left me alone,” Camila accused in lieu of an answer.

  
“I was in the shower. You can’t be in the shower with me.” Lauren explained slowly, cautious of upsetting Camila while she was so high up. Camila tended to flail about when she was excited. Lauren didn’t really think it would be fatal to jump from the roof but she didn’t want Camila to be hurt, either way.

 

“I can, though.”

 

Lauren laughed nervously. Camila did like to insist she could do things when Lauren told her she couldn’t. Lauren didn’t think much of it. Lauren told herself not to think much of it.

 

“Camila, you need to come down – climb down. Safely. Without falling, or hurting yourself. Please.”

 

“No?”

 

Stubborn. Camila sunk down to rest on her elbows, moving too jerkily and quickly for Lauren’s comfort, and Lauren moaned, utterly helpless. She didn’t even know how Camila had gotten on the roof, had no way of getting up there herself. Lauren didn’t think she even owned a ladder.

 

“Sparkles wants you to know you worry too much,” Camila told her, cocking her head and smiling down at Lauren fondly.

 

Sparkles was a bitch.

 

Camila scooted closer to the edge of the roof, reaching a useless arm out towards Lauren in invitation. Lauren winced, resisting the urge to shut her eyes against the image as Camila swung her feet happily off the side of the house.

 

“Anything!” Lauren screeched. “Anything you want! Come down and we’ll do whatever you want!”

 

Camila stopped moving slowly, watching Lauren with a guarded kind of interest. Lauren could not bring herself to regret offering anything, as long as Camila came down safely.

 

Really, Lauren probably would have done anything for Camila anyway.

 

Lauren held her breath as Camila suddenly stood on the roof, her converse skidding across the shingles and Lauren’s heart beating faster. Camila walked happily, if a little awkwardly, to stand on the edge of the roof and Lauren gasped with the sudden realization that Camila might just jump, so unafraid.

 

Lauren stumbled over her own feet to the side of the house where Camila was looking down curiously. Lauren had never been fond of heights; she would have been shaking with fear in Camila’s position. She was shaking now and she was the one on the ground.

 

“Camila—“ Lauren started to protest, but Camila was already moving.

 

She knelt down and promptly threw a foot off the side of the roof. Her foot swung in the air for a moment and met the lattice on the side of the house, catching the wood behind the overgrown plants climbing it. Once there had been roses covering the whole side of the house, beautiful and alive like Lauren’s grandmother herself. Now ivy grew, wild and untamed.

 

Lauren breathed through clenched teeth, reaching uselessly up but too afraid to grab onto Camila for fear of startling her and making her fall.

 

Camila climbed down the lattice, too certain of her footholds, and Lauren stood behind her, ready to catch her if she fell. When Camila came closer to the ground Lauren pushed her hands against the wall, trapping Camila against it in case she jumped from too high.

 

When Camila’s feet hit the ground safely she turned easily to face Lauren, trapped between her arms and perfectly happy about it.

 

“Thank God,” Lauren muttered, wrapping her arms firmly around Camila’s shoulders and hugging her close.

 

Camila puffed a hot breath against Lauren’s collarbone, rubbing her nose into Lauren’s neck for a short moment before Lauren pulled haltingly away.

 

“I never used to worry this much before you came along,” Lauren claimed pathetically. “I was cool before I met you.”

 

Camila laughed openly. Lauren did not appreciate the sentiment.

 

She still liked Camila’s laugh.

——-

Camila didn’t want to go dumpster diving. She didn’t want to go to the mall. She didn’t want to plant an apple orchard. She didn’t want to visit Ben.

 

Camila had an unusual look about her, an unusual style. She wore strangely colored clothes, some of which Lauren would have never thought on wearing. She could not live if she did not have a bow on her head. And in the last couple of days she had being experimenting with Lauren’s make up. Her lips were slightly shinier than was probably natural, slightly too pink. Her nails were purple.

 

But it wasn’t really strange after a few hours. It was Camila, and Lauren liked Camila.

 

Lauren liked Camila, Lauren liked Camila’s style, but Lauren still didn’t want to wear pink lip-gloss. Pink lip-gloss that her mother had bough for her a few months ago and she had never wore.

 

“Anything,” Camila repeated very clearly for Lauren, her voice raspy, in a comical and completely inaccurate impression of Lauren’s voice. “Anything you want!” If the tone was off, the impression of Lauren’s desperation was annoyingly accurate.

 

“Anything but sparkly lip gloss,” Lauren tried to insist, though she was already seated in the kitchen where Camila had put her and then promptly run off and come skipping happily back with the box of make-up. “Come on Camz, it has  _glitter_  in it,” Lauren whined, giving the offending gloss a nervous glance.

 

Lauren decidedly didn’t like glitter.

 

Camila liked it enough for both of them.

 

“You’ll be so pretty and cute, though,” Camila said in what she must have fondly imagined was a convincing way. Lauren was fairly certain she didn’t want to be  _pretty and cute_. “Badass,” Camila corrected, perhaps seeing Lauren’s displeasure with the words. “Pretty and cute in a cool, badass way.”

 

“There is no cute in badass, Camila.”

 

Camila pouted.

 

“Okay,” Lauren caved. “Get it over with.”

 

Lauren was probably going to have to learn how to say no to Camila someday.

 

“Thank you, Lolo,” Camila said, turning big, worshiping eyes on her. Lauren smiled helplessly back.

 

Someday, but definitely not today.

 

“You want me to look like you?” Lauren asked as Camila began digging around in the cardboard box. It had the faded logo of a nearby market on it; Camila had more than likely pulled it out of a dumpster.

 

“I’ll be like you and you’ll be like me,” Camila agreed, eyes bright with the idea. “We’ll be each other.”

 

Lauren wondered what the world would look like if she was Camila, if it would be magical and empty of fear. She wondered what the trees would say if she could talk to them, what trash would look like if it was not simply trash.

 

“You’re not wearing contact lenses, are you,” Lauren said instead. She wouldn’t really have wanted that. No matter how many times Camila had complimented Lauren’s eyes, Lauren just loved Camila’s deep, brown eyes, full of magic and mystery. Lauren wouldn’t have wanted that to change.

 

“You’re too literal,” Camila told her, and Lauren had to laugh out loud at that. Of course, Camila would think that. She saw the whole world in symbolic, mystical swirls instead of the straightforward boring lines it really was.

 

“You’re too… not literal.” Lauren kind of liked it.

 

“Besides, your eyes are so shinny. There are no contact lenses like that.” Camila said and shoved a make-up brush in Lauren’s face. And Lauren hoped the make-up would cover up the blush rushing to her face.

 

Camila told her purple eye shadow went well with her skin tone. Lauren thought Camila just had an unusual affection for the color.

 

She covered Lauren’s face in strange, cool lines of make-up, dustings of color that Lauren couldn’t see without a mirror. Lauren was stuck between being curious and not really wanting to see herself in pink lip-gloss.

 

“Finished?” Lauren asked as Camila pulled away, dropping a last pencil into her box.

 

Camila smiled and reached out her hand towards Lauren. She waited patiently, fingers half curled and hovering expectantly.

 

Lauren watched Camila, affectionate eyes and naive expression, floppy hair and pretty oversized sweatshirt. Her nails were purple varnished and chipping. Lauren swallowed and took her hand.

 

Camila hooked her fingers curiously around Lauren’s, examining Lauren’s hand with interest and turning it to inspect Lauren’s palm as well. She touched each of Lauren’s nails gently, exploring the creases of Lauren’s skin. Lauren let her.

 

Finally Camila squeezed her hand and looked up, confident and pleased.

 

Then Camila got out the nail polish.

 

Lauren’s nails were Gunmetal Purple minutes later. If nothing else she approved of the name, and that Camila hadn’t pulled out a bottle of bright candy pink.

 

Camila took a step back, twisting the cap on the pungent smelling polish and observing Lauren hesitantly. “Do you like it?” She asked, expression strangely uncertain for Camila, who always seemed sure of herself.

 

“I can’t see it,” Lauren pointed out. Camila frowned and bit at her lip nervously. “I like it,” Lauren assured her. “Let me see it.”

 

Camila followed along obediently to the bathroom, slipping in behind Lauren in the cramped space so she could watch Lauren watching herself in the mirror.

 

“I look…” Lauren poked at her own cheek, pulling at the skin below her eye. Her lips, unnaturally pink and bright against her skin, and a red bow on her head.

 

“You look like me,” Camila said, sounding awed.

 

Lauren looked in the mirror and had to agree. Camila was standing slightly behind her, eyes big and awed. Lauren watched their faces together in the mirror, highlighted in dramatic colors and matching smiles spread across their glossy lips.

——-

After her second shower of the day – because as much as Lauren really did sort of like Camila, bows and pink lip gloss were not really her thing – Laure came out of the bathroom to find Camila thankfully still in the house.

 

Camila was spread out on the floor in the family room in the huge empty space she’d cleared by rearranging all the furniture up against the walls. She was on her back, staring at the ceiling. Camila looked over and smiled like she was happy to see her when Lauren came into the room.

 

“Watching the stars?” Lauren asked, flopping down easily on the floor beside Camila.

 

Camila reached out to tug on the fabric of Lauren’s sleeve. “Watch them with me, Lolo.”

 

“I can’t see them through the ceiling,” Lauren protested, but found herself stretching out on the carpet next to Camila anyway.

 

Camila hooked two of her fingers over Lauren’s when Lauren was settled on the floor, both in shiny purple nail polish. The polish hadn’t come off in the shower. Lauren didn’t know how to get it off because her nail polish remover had mysteriously disappeared, and she doubted Camila would be very helpful since she’d looked quietly disapproving when Lauren had said she was taking the make-up off. In fact, Lauren was convinced Camila had something to do with the mysterious disappearance of the nail polish remover.

 

“Look harder,” Camila suggested. “All the lights in the dark and all the shiny things. You can see them if you look for them.”

 

Camila sounded so sure of herself, Lauren believed it.

 

When she did look, though, there was only the white plaster of the ceiling, the water stains and the cobwebs.

 

“I don’t see them,” Lauren said, strangely disappointed.

 

Camila was not deterred. “You’ll see,” she said, and it almost made sense this time.

 

Lauren turned her head to the side slightly to watch Camila instead.

 

Camila was enraptured with the ceiling – the stars – her lips parted in wonder and her eyes focused intently. Her face was familiar to Lauren now, bow and all. Nothing had ever felt so familiar, no one had ever belonged in Lauren’s life the way Camila did.

 

Soulmates, Camila had said.

 

Camila turned away from her stars to meet Lauren’s gaze, curious.

 

“You’re kind of like a star,” Lauren told her.

 

Camila smiled back, bright as the sun.

  
Lauren didn’t think she needed to see the stars as long as he could see Camila seeing them.

——-

Camila was on the roof again before the night was over.

 

In all fairness, Camila had only agreed to get off the roof, not to stay off it.

 

This time the stars really were out, the moon a slit of light in the dark. When Lauren called for her, Camila tilted her head away from the stars for only a moment to acknowledge Lauren before going back to her stargazing.

 

Camila wouldn’t come down and so Lauren followed her up.

 

Her boots kept slipping in the openings of the lattice. Her fingers were sweaty and catching leaves of waxy ivy. She didn’t let herself look down. Lauren wouldn’t have climbed onto a roof for anyone else. When she was high enough up to grab the edge of the roof her purple painted fingernails pulled against the tile alarmingly.

 

Suddenly a hand curled confidently around her and Lauren looked up to see Camila leaning over the edge of the roof, smiling down with an air that could only be described as proud. Lauren swallowed her fear and scrambled the rest of the way up, holding tight to Camila’s hand even when she was safely – if it could be considered safe at all, which Lauren really didn’t think it could – on the roof.

 

“Shit,” Lauren breathed, catching sight of the night before her as they sat, the houses across the street and the sky above and exactly how high up they were. It wasn’t safe. Camila could fall.

 

“Don’t be scared,” Camila said, still squeezing Lauren’s hand comfortingly and patting at her shoulder a bit. Lauren entertained vague notions of pulling her hand away in pride but couldn’t really bring herself to care that much.

 

“You can’t be up here,” Lauren said.

 

Camila smiled pleasantly, looking up at the stars without worry. She didn’t say ‘I can, though,’ but Lauren heard it anyway.

 

She had a point. Camila, apparently, quite liked being on the roof, and Lauren knew Camila well enough to know that she wouldn’t stop coming up there if she didn’t want to.

 

“Not by yourself,” Lauren amended. Camila turned from making eyes at the stars to give Lauren a curious look. “Okay, Camz? You –  _we_  can go on the roof and watch the stars whenever you want. But not by yourself, okay?”

 

“Not by myself,” Camila repeated, rolling the words off her tongue like they felt strange to her lips. She repeated them a few times, testing, and then she smiled, bright even in the darkness. “Okay.”

 

Lauren sighed with premature relief. Suddenly, Camila was standing tall on the roof, her converse scuffing against the tiles and her balance uncertain. Lauren squawked, panicked, and found herself jerking to her own feet.

 

Lauren would have begged Camila to sit back down but Camila was watching her so proudly, like standing precariously on the roof of her grandmother’s house was something to be proud of, and instead Lauren threw her hand out to wrap around Camila’s forearm, unsure if it was to steady herself or to steady Camila.

 

“I won’t let you fall,” Camila said. “I promise.”


	14. Cohabitation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

Lauren liked living with Camila.

 

Camila had some special, devoted love for all aspects of the house. All the things that were simply  _there_  to Lauren, Camila cherished.

 

Camila liked the portraits on the walls, seemed happy to tell them about the toaster and her friend Elvis and her soul mate Lolo and of course the stars. Lauren didn’t even know who the paintings were of. They’d been on the walls when her grandmother had died and Lauren had never taken them down.

 

She’d taken all the family photos down – her parents getting married. Her grandmother, with deep smile lines, holding a guitar above her head like a trophy.

 

The photos were left in a heap in her grandmother’s old room and the paintings of strangers stayed on the walls.

 

They weren’t strangers anymore. Camila had introduced Lauren to them all. The man with a mustache, painted on velvet and odd and dark looking was Elf. Lauren didn’t know why, except that Camila had decided that was his name, and so it was. The child with her dog that hung by the door was unnamed, but her dog was Simon Cowel, courtesy of one of Lauren’s awkward jokes and Camila’s over enthusiasm. The largest painting in the house hung in the study, a picture of a family camping under the stars. None of the family members had names, as Camila was entirely unconcerned with them. The grouping of bright stars above their heads, however, was named Leo.

 

Strangely, Lauren could remember all the names of Camila’s painted friends, though she could hardly remember the names of her own coworkers.

 

Camila befriended more than just the paintings. She was a social butterfly as far as inanimate objects went. To Lauren, a toaster was just a toaster. To Camila, it was her new friend David who conveniently provided toast.

 

Living with Camila was an interesting experience.

 

Camila liked to eat dessert before actual meals. Lauren had bought more sweets in less than a week of living with Camila than she had in the last year. Lauren wasn’t complaining. Camila tried everything they bought, even chocolate, which she seemed to hate. She made the funniest displeased faces when she tried it, but then Lauren would take a bite of her own chocolate bar and Camila would pout until Lauren gave her a piece, which she undoubtedly wouldn’t like the taste of either.

 

She still liked to climb up on the roof but never alone, to Lauren’s great relief. Just as everything else with Camila, Lauren grew fond of being on the roof. High up, yes, but Camila liked it, and so Lauren started to like it too.

 

Camila liked to stand directly under the air conditioner vent when it was on, laughing and gulping up the cold air until her throat went dry and her voice hoarse for hours afterwards and Lauren decided that it really wasn’t  _that_  hot.

 

She liked it when Lauren made promises to her, stupid things like promising to be friendly to Elvis even though the cat got hair on everything, and promising to give Camila’s cherished sweatshirt back after she washed it.

 

Unsurprisingly, Camila had very specific opinions about what Lauren was allowed to throw away, and even then she went through the trash every night. There were three apple cores buried in a makeshift garden in the backyard and candy wrappers arranged lovingly as a centerpiece on the kitchen table.

 

Lauren had started throwing away a variety of shiny things when Camila wasn’t looking, just to entertain her. Camila gave them back every time, rolling her eyes and not fooled a bit, but she looked pleased, and so Lauren kept doing it. Two days ago she’d thrown away her car key, expecting Camila to find it and give it back, but Camila never had. Lauren had gone through the trash herself to find the key but, low and behold, it wasn’t there.

 

Now Lauren didn’t have a car key and Camila seemed entirely too pleased with herself.

 

Even without the car key Lauren was venturing outside the walls of her grandmother’s home more now than she ever had. Lauren would have gone anywhere with Camila.

 

It was impossible to be lonely with Camila beside her, even when Camila was silent, which was rare. Companionship should have been a strange, new feeling. It wasn’t. Camila fit into Lauren like a missing piece, their curves meeting to form a whole, the empty spaces filling up with the presence of the other as they curled together.

 

Camila still slept in Lauren’s bed.

 

She insisted on sharing the same pillow, even though there were more than enough pillows to go around. It was warm, Camila’s skin pressed up against Lauren’s as they both tried to get comfortable on one standard size pillow, but then maybe that was why Camila liked it. She hated to be cold, after all. She couldn’t be cold with Lauren’s body heat pressed up against her.

 

Lauren had never realized how cold it was without Camila beside her.

 

Of all the things Camila loved in the house, the telephone was not one of them. She jumped when it rang and whined when Lauren moved to pick it up. It rang annoyingly often, as Lauren’s boss kept calling.

 

She’d go to work today, Lauren decided as she entered the kitchen to the smell of warm toast. She’d definitely go today.

 

“Morning, Camz,” Lauren greeted, throwing herself into the chair across from Camila.

 

Camila nodded happily and returned the greeting. She appeared to be having toast and a cherry Popsicle for breakfast. Lauren reached for a piece of Camila’s toast and Camila gave her a highly disapproving look. Lauren sighed.

 

She turned her head to eye the battered toaster, giving it an exaggerated nod of greeting. “Good morning, David,” Lauren offered, and Camila nodded approvingly and handed her the piece of toast.

 

It was Monday morning, and if Lauren cared at all about her job she should have been going in, but, well, Camila.

 

It was Monday for Lauren anyway, for Camila it never seemed to be. Michael was coming on Monday, Camila had said. As long as Michael didn’t come, it wouldn’t be Monday.

 

Lauren had a feeling it wasn’t going to be Monday for Camila for a long time.

 

“I’m going to have to go back to work eventually,” Lauren said, hoping to convince herself. “I told my boss my mother died when he called yesterday, and on Friday I told him I was in a tragic car accident on the way to work. And  _you_ ,” Lauren said, pointing an accusing finger at Camila who was sucking on her Popsicle with an affected innocence. “You told me to tell him I’d gone chasing the stars, which he didn’t appreciate at all. I’m running out of ideas.”

 

Camila stopped licking her Popsicle for a moment to give Lauren a sad look, her lips tinted a dark red. Her eyes widened a bit when Lauren just stared, and she sucked the side of her lip into her mouth, biting at it anxiously.

 

Lauren sighed.

 

“I’ll tell him I have to go to Indonesia for the funeral.” Lauren took the Popsicle from Camila and took a bite out of it.

——-

Camila went about reorganizing the living room furniture after breakfast, as it was one of her favorite things to do. Lauren thought Camila just liked to see her sweat and pant pathetically, moving the couch from one wall to the other.

 

When everything was arranged to Camila’s liking it was forming an extravagant sort of fort, a bigger version of the kind Lauren’s childhood friends used to make. Camila was curled up happily inside the fort with a book when Lauren came back from washing the sweat off. She crawled under the fort’s thin sheet ceiling, settling down next to Camila. Lauren frowned curiously at the cover of the book. She couldn’t read the title. It was upside down.

 

Camila happily turned a page.

 

Lauren reached out and took the book from Camila’s fingers silently, flipping it over for her. Camila frowned and promptly flipped the book back over and went back to pretending to read it.

 

“I like it this way,” Camila said simply, staring at the pages in utter absorption. Lauren moved closer to stare at it too. It just looked like a bunch of upside down letters to her. “It speaks to me.”

 

“What does it say?”

 

Camila flipped another page of the book. Lauren wondered how she knew when each page was done speaking to her.

 

“Oh,” Camila said, glancing over to give Lauren a confused look. “I don’t know. I don’t speak book.”

 

Lauren nodded slowly, relaxing back against the fort’s wall quietly so she wouldn’t disturb Camila’s reading. Conversing with a book. Whichever. Lauren wondered if Camila really couldn’t read after all. She didn’t expect she’d get an answer if she asked.

 

Lauren watched Camila, humming a little too loudly, a little too in tune, and turning the pages of an upside down book at random, sitting in a giant fort that Lauren had helped build, and really, really didn’t want to ever lose her.

——-

Lauren had a plan.

 

This one was a good plan. Even Camila thought so.

 

They were going to make the guest bedroom Camila’s. Well, it already was, but it didn’t look like it was Camila’s and Camila didn’t actually use it. If it looked like Camila’s then she would be more comfortable there, and, Lauren thought a little guiltily, more grounded in the house.

 

Camila seemed grounded in the house already, she seemed to like Lauren. She didn’t even seem to want to use her own room but, well, Camila could change her mind. Camila could get tired of Lauren, and if she did then she’d need something else to keep her in the house, something that was hers.

 

Camila didn’t know about that part of the plan, of course, just the part where they were going to paint stuff.

 

“You have purple on your nose,” Lauren told her, running a roller of light blue paint up and down the wall in meticulous lines while Camila painted an indecipherable pattern in purple right next to her.

 

“To make my nose pretty,” Camila told her happily and promptly brushed Lauren’s cheek with purple when Lauren turned to respond.

 

“Ack!” Lauren jumped back, flailed, and steadied herself with a hand on her perfect blue wall. She pulled slowly away to find her palm covered in light blue and a wall with a handprint on it. Camila laughed joyfully and pressed her hand up against Lauren’s print to leave her own.

 

“Perfect,” Camila said, looking as if she approved highly of Lauren’s new painting technique. Lauren touched Camila’s cheek softly so she had light blue on her jaw.

 

When they finished it was almost nightfall. Lauren took a step back to look at the big picture and figured it was just the way Camila liked it, just the way it should have been. The paint was uneven, perfect in some places and so manipulated in others that it was dizzying and confusing to the eye, the colors mixing together. A pretty accurate representation of Camila herself, Lauren thought. Lauren had even stood on some furniture to paint a simple, symmetrical star on the ceiling, which had quickly been joined by its lopsided double when Camila had climbed up next to her. By the look on Camila’s face, Lauren had a feeling the stars were soul mates.

 

The room was, in all ways, perfect for Camila.

 

Lauren’s plans never ended well.

 

Camila liked the room, so Lauren had been right about that. After painting the room Camila had happily spread herself out on the bed to stare up at the stars painted on the ceiling, the purple clouds of color on the walls mixing with subdued blues. Camila stayed in her room for the longest time she’d ever been out of Lauren’s sight since she’d moved in. Lauren washed the dishes piling up in the kitchen. She dumped the dirty laundry in the washer after shooing Elvis out of the laundry basket the cat had become fond of. She turned the television on, which had been relocated to the floor to help build a wall of the fort. She watched an infomercial and was almost persuaded into buying some shoes that were on sale.

 

Camila was still in her room.

 

Even Lauren’s successful plans never went well. Camila liked her room – fine, good, but she wasn’t supposed to abandon Lauren for it!

 

Entirely unfair.

 

Camila had a right to her own space, Lauren told herself. Lauren would have to go to work eventually and it was good, definitely good, that Camila felt comfortable alone in the house.

 

Lauren was sitting on the couch, not sulking and thinking about cleaning the stove, when Camila came stumbling in.

 

She knew immediately that something was not right. Camila did not stumble; she flounced, she strutted, she danced and she bounced and all sorts of other things that only Camila could get away with doing, but Camila was alive and energetic and she didn’t stumble, didn’t slump in on herself.

 

She was slumped now, her feet scuffing the floor as she moved, one arm folded protectively over her chest and the other tugging at her long hair.

 

“What’s wrong?” Lauren asked immediately, standing and grabbing Camila’s elbow to somehow steady her.

 

Camila hooked the fingers of one hand desperately on Lauren’s t-shirt. “I hurt my head,” she said, yanking in frustration at a lock of her hair.

 

Camila had said it before, Lauren remembered. It was no less worrying. “Today?” Lauren asked carefully, wondering why she hadn’t heard a crash if Camila had fallen. She wouldn’t have stood on the bed again to draw more stars on the ceiling; Lauren had taken the paint out of the room to store in the garage.

 

Except the paint on the walls, of course, that had been giving off some fairly strong fumes.

 

“Oh Camz,” Lauren whispered, brushing Camila’s hair softly away from her face. “So stupid.” Lauren knew that Camila’s decision making was weighed much more heavily towards amusement and symbolism than practicality. Lauren had to look out for her, and she hadn’t. It hurt to see Camila in pain, squishing her eyebrows together and clenching her jaw strangely.

 

“I’m not,” Camila insisted, looking hurt.

 

“What—no, not you. I am. Here, sit down,” Lauren led Camila to the couch with a hand on her back. “I’ll get you an aspirin,” she said, feeling useless.

 

Camila made a pathetic whining noise as Lauren walked away, like everything she cared about was being taken away from her. Lauren forced herself forward, bringing back two small pills and slipping an arm around Camila’s shoulders in apology as she sat next to her.

 

“Take these.” Camila was reaching for her and Lauren pulled her fingers open to drop two tiny pills into her palm. Camila shook her head; wincing as she did so and making Laure wince in turn, and pushed the pills resolutely back at Lauren.

 

“No, no,” Camila insisted. “I don’t like them, they make everything gray. Then I’ll have to clean the ceiling so I can see the stars.”

 

“They won’t make anything gray,” Lauren coaxed. “They’re just—”

 

“No.” Camila abandoned her punishment of her hair to fold her arms stubbornly, pursing her lips together like Lauren might try to stuff the pills in her mouth.

 

“They’ll make you feel better,” Lauren tried, stroking Camila’s neck with her thumb comfortingly. “They’re just aspirin. Haven’t you had aspirin before?”

 

Camila shook her head again, too violently, but Lauren didn’t know if it was a general refusal or if Camila really never had taken an aspirin. “No,” Camila insisted, hardly moving her lips as she did. She looked entirely unhappy with the turn of events and Lauren backed off immediately.

 

“Okay, no aspirin then.” Lauren set the rejected pills down on the coffee table, Camila watching her do so carefully. “You want something else?” Lauren asked helplessly.

 

Camila stared curiously at her for a few moments and Lauren gave her an encouraging smile, reaching out to pat Camila’s hair. Camila seemed to take this as an invitation and promptly flopped down on her side on the couch, her head landing on Lauren’s lap.

 

Lauren reached out abruptly to cradle Camila’s head in her hand, like she could stop Camila from hurting herself. Camila gave a pleased hum and nuzzled Lauren’s fingers.

 

“I know you’re friends with Elvis,” Lauren said, “but you’re not actually a cat yourself, you know.” She stroked Camila’s arm gently despite her words, in a motion similar to petting a cat.

 

Camila huffed quietly into the material of Lauren’s jeans, her hand hooked possessively around Lauren’s knee. “You like me anyway.”

 

“I do,” Lauren agreed, and felt Camila smile against her thigh.

 

Camila seemed to feel better after excessive cuddling and Lauren’s humming tunes from some of her favorite songs for her. Still, Lauren stood closer than she usually would have, kept a hand in Camila’s, and told herself it was only because she was worried.

 

In bed that night Camila curled close around Lauren, pulling at her hair and playing with it. Lauren chuckled softly into her half of the pillow. “What are you doing?” she asked curiously, her voice soft in the dark.

 

“Your hair is messy and there’s so much of it. The could be a nest of snakes hiding there,” Camila told her, “and I am a snake charmer.” Lauren laughed at the nonsense and Camila nudged her shoulder impatiently. “Quiet,” Camila scolded, “you’ll  _upset_  them.”

 

Lauren quieted obediently and allowed Camila to go back to running her fingers through her hair, tugging gently and making quiet soothing noises that may have been her charming the snakes.

 

Lauren fell asleep with her heart beating a strange rhythm in her chest.

——-

Lauren didn’t go back to work the next day.

 

“Tomorrow,” Lauren told Camila over breakfast. Camila ignored her in favor of pulling at her hair and trying to feed one of the hidden snakes a skittle.

 

Lauren told her boss she couldn’t come in because she’d gotten married and was on her honeymoon.

 

Camila crushed a skittle in her hair. Lauren laughed as she hung up the phone.

 

It may not have been a complete lie.

——-

Searching for Camila was becoming a normalcy.

 

Lauren didn’t mind it – Camila was never truly missing, only exploring places or things that Lauren hadn’t thought of. She hadn’t climbed on the roof without Lauren since the first night, and she had yet to actually injure herself within the house. Camila just found the strangest places to entertain herself. Since Camila wasn’t tall, and she was also thin and flexible, she took full advantage of all the places she could fit herself, under the bed being one of her favorites.

 

When Lauren went looking for Camila, who had disappeared after breakfast, she wasn’t under the bed. She wasn’t in any of the closets, or reading, in the strange way that Camila read, or under the desk in the study.

 

With the twang of a guitar, Lauren knew where Camila was.

 

The door to her grandmother’s room was closed, but Lauren knew that Camila was behind it. It was the only reason she could close her hand over the cold metal of the doorknob, the only reason she could open the door that she had not opened in so long.

 

The room looked the same. Her bed and her hand-sewn pillows, and her necklace on the dresser, an open lipstick still waiting to be used beside it. There was a pile of family photos Lauren had dumped on the floor and Lauren’s guitar resting on the bed. The guitar, though Lauren had not seen it in a year, was achingly familiar.

 

Camila was sitting next to it.

 

“Hey,” Lauren said, not stepping through the doorway. “We’re not supposed to be in here.”

 

“I’m not scared,” Camila said, watching Lauren with gentle eyes.

 

 _I am_ , Lauren thought. She didn’t say it, but maybe Camila heard her anyway. Camila stood from the bed and walked carefully up to the door, within Lauren’s reach enough that Lauren could have pulled her out of the room without actually going in herself. Lauren didn’t.

 

Camila said nothing, simply reach her hand out for Lauren to take. Lauren swallowed, seeing Camila instead of her dead grandmother in the room, and took her hand. Lauren would always take Camila’s hand, always trust her to lead Lauren the right way.

 

She stepped over the threshold.

 

They sat on the bed together, Camila running her fingers over the glossy surface of Lauren’s guitar, entranced by it out of all the jewelry and shiny things in the room.

 

“It’s a guitar. You make music on it,” Lauren said, a little nervous within the room’s confines, and yet her world had not ended, she remained breathing. Camila was breathing, alive, her pulse steady as Lauren held tight to her wrist.

 

“Yes,” Camila said, raising an eyebrow at Lauren in that unimpressed way. Lauren wasn’t always sure what Camila would and wouldn’t understand, though, what she recognized and what was foreign to her. “Your guitar,” Camila murmured, but it didn’t sound like a question.

 

“Yeah. I want to be a musician.” And then, “I wanted to, anyway.”

 

“Not anymore?” asked Camila, looking away from the guitar to focus sharply on Lauren.

 

“No. I don’t know.” She was afraid of the master bedroom in her own home. She worked in a coffee shop. She hadn’t touched her guitar in a year.

 

“You do know, though,” Camila said easily. Lauren couldn’t disagree.

 

She wanted to make music. Make music and play music and be a part of the music.

 

Lauren’s first memory was of a guitar. Her father had brought it home from the studio. The instrument was glossy and soft underneath Lauren’s clumsy fingers. She pulled at a string, curious. It made a shrill noise, too loud and too sharp and Lauren thought –  _magic, it_ _’_ _s magic_.

 

There wasn’t much magic in music anymore. If there was, Lauren couldn’t find it.

 

She jolted to a loud sound.

 

Camila had picked up the guitar and was pulling at the strings with curious fingers.

 

“Wait—” Lauren said, and then abruptly lost her voice, wasn’t sure what she was going to say. Camila was smiling, bright and knowing, entranced by the noise she was making. Music.

 

Lauren wondered if Camila could see the magic. Camila seemed to be able to see the magic in just about everything.

 

Camila turned to look at her, hands frozen over the strings, and Lauren shook her head slowly. “No, never mind, go ahead.”

 

Camila smiled down at the guitar and pulled too hard on another string. Lauren watched her, her mind silent and her throat dry.

 

Camila played with the guitar for a long while before Lauren finally moved. Camila was sitting with it in her lap, positioned incorrectly, humming a contrasting tune and plucking at the strings, singing words to the walls that Lauren didn’t understand but were melodious none the less.

 

“Here,” Lauren said, moving to sit behind Camila. She wound her arms around Camila’s shoulders and positioned the guitar correctly. “Try it like this.”

——-

After Camila had been introduced to the guitar, she didn’t want to stop playing it, she didn’t want Lauren to stop playing it. Hours passed and Lauren moved the guitar from her grandmother’s old room into her, their, bedroom. Camila loved the music, the noise it made, loved to sing along with sounds that did not make words and words that only made sense to her.

 

It made Lauren’s chest ache, her stomach flutter, to make Camila happy by running her fingers along those taut strings.

 

Lauren was a rock star.


	15. Here and Gone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

All of Camila’s possessions had taken up residence in Lauren’s room until it could only be considered their shared space. Camila’s most precious things, the trunk of shiny treasures, had been the first to move over, pressed up against the bed just like it had been in Camila’s abandoned building.

 

This was home now.

 

Lauren’s car key was sitting innocently in that trunk.

 

Lauren felt like she was doing something terrible by taking it, stealing something treasured that belonged to Camila as she slept.

 

Camila was curled up in the dip in the middle of the mattress, her forehead wrinkled unhappily and her fingers grasping for something that wasn’t there. Lauren would have liked to be there, she would have liked to give Camila the company she craved even in her sleep, but if Lauren did, she’d probably never go back to work.

 

Lauren would have liked to never go back to work.

 

Camila huffed, her eyelids flickering as she rolled further onto the side of the bed where Lauren had been sleeping, her hands still searching.

 

Lauren shifted anxiously above, watching Camila’s long eyelashes flutter, holding her breath when she thought Camila might wake, but Camila only nuzzled their shared pillow. Even asleep, Lauren thought Camila looked confused and distressed at being left alone in the bed.

 

It wasn’t that Lauren was abandoning Camila; she just had to go to work. People worked, it was a thing. Not a thing that Lauren really understood or supported, but a thing anyway. Camila was no more a morning person than Lauren was. Camila didn’t need to be awake just because Lauren was leaving.

 

Camila didn’t need to be awake because if she were Lauren wouldn’t leave. Camila would frown and offer her something sugary in enticement. She’d start talking about planting a tree or going to see Sparkles in obvious hope of distracting Lauren. And Lauren would let her, Lauren would get distracted.

 

Then her boss would call, threatening to fire her again.

 

This was better, Lauren told herself, watching Camila’s fingers tighten and release around nothing and feeling her heart clench simultaneously.

 

“You’ll be fine,” Lauren said helplessly, her voice low. Camila whined as if she did not agree at all, her fingers twitching, and Lauren took pity on the searching hand and covered Camila’s fingers with hers.

 

Camila clutched Lauren’s hand with an unexpected strength, her fingers hooked desperately around Lauren’s. She didn’t wake, only sighed softly into the pillow, curling her body around their entwined hands. Her skin was warm with sleep, her palm fit perfectly against Lauren’s.

 

Lauren swallowed and stepped away from the bed abruptly, trying to pull her hand inconspicuously away. Camila mumbled a displeased sound, holding on possessively and scrunching her face up with obvious irritation.

 

“I have to leave for a little while…” Lauren said uselessly, pulling at her hand. Camila only clutched harder, no more ready to let Lauren leave while asleep than she would have been awake.

 

Lauren looked around the room helplessly. “Oh.” Her teddy bear was sitting flopped over on the corner of the bed. It was soft and worn from clutching, the stuffing overused so the bear slumped over when it sat, a loved childhood toy.

 

Lauren pressed the bear gently into Camila’s fingers now, pulling her own hand away so Camila was shifting, clutching the bear to her chest and not frowning quite as hard.

 

“You keep that for awhile,” Lauren encouraged, edging slowly away from the bed, turning the stolen car key over and over in her hand until the metal was warm from her skin. Camila still whined into the pillow like she knew she was being abandoned even in her sleep.

 

“I’ll give this back as soon as I get home,” Lauren promised, clutching the key. Camila didn’t wake, her fingers tightening on the teddy bear, and Lauren swallowed thickly, running a finger over the blankets instead of over Camila’s exposed arm.

 

Even as she turned away, already late, Lauren could hardly ignore the ridiculous sense of foreboding.

 

The truck’s old engine seemed louder than usual, roaring and making Lauren flinch like she was hearing it through Camila’s sensitive ears instead of her own.

 

When Lauren walked through Cocoa’s front door, the joyful bell jingling above her head as she entered, Normani gave her a pitying look and waved her immediately towards the boss’s office.

 

“You don’t look like you’ve been in a fatal car accident,” was the first thing the man said when Lauren stepped through the door. “You appear fairly alive, actually.”

 

Lauren frowned thoughtfully at this. “I’m dead on the inside?” She offered hopefully.

 

Her boss just shook his head, looking harried. “And your mother too.”

 

“I haven’t seen her in awhile. She could have died. It’s possible.”

 

The man rubbed a tired hand over his face. “You’re not wearing a wedding ring, and,  _chasing the stars_ , Lauren? Are you even  _trying_?”

 

“Not really,” Lauren admitted honestly.

 

His boss made a sad, dying noise and put his head in his hands. He looked a bit like the world was crumbling down around his feet.

 

Working at Cocoa’s would do that to you, Lauren figured.

 

“Please get out of my office.” He waved Lauren away with the air of a man resigned to his fate. Lauren shrugged and went.

 

Since she didn’t think she’d been fired yet, Lauren put on her apron and went back to hating her job.

 

“I heard you got married,” Normani said, snapping her gum. “How’d that work out?”

 

Lauren looked down at her still purple-varnished fingernails, a hesitant smile pulling across her lips.

 

“New style?” Normani asked as she eyed Lauren’s nails over her shoulder, amusement unsuppressed in her voice.

 

“I can’t get it off,” Lauren defended, picking at the paint of one nail and peeling a tiny piece of purple off.

 

“Nail polish remover?” Normani offered in a tone that suggested she didn’t think Lauren was very smart. “You could buy a bottle at the drug store across the street.”

 

Lauren frowned thoughtfully at her nails, tilting her hand to look at them closer and noticing the way the light reflected off the polish. Camila would have been thrilled with the way it shined.

 

Normani hummed curiously behind her. Lauren curled her fingers protectively towards her palm. “Maybe later.”

——-

Lauren had never been fond of working at the coffee shop. It had always been a job to pass the time until she became a rock star, a job her mother had felt she needed to be a ‘productive member of society’ as she put it. Now that she and Camila were rock stars, with a guitar and Camila’s skewed, changing lyrics and everything, and Lauren hadn’t talked to Clara in months, Lauren was even less pleased to be working there.

 

The Styrofoam cups were mocking her, Lauren was sure. She glared at the coffee and she glared at the few customers and she glared at the blank gray walls and she glared at the clock, waiting for her shift to be over. By noon her heart was beating strangely in her chest, fluttering and anxious.

 

Avoiding work was not all laziness. Lauren didn’t like the idea of leaving Camila alone in the house. She was sure Camila could amuse herself. Camila could amuse herself with a garbage can.

 

Lauren wasn’t so sure that Camila wouldn’t hurt herself. She wasn’t sure that Camila wouldn’t forget about not climbing on the roof. She wasn’t sure that Camila wouldn’t get another headache.

 

She wasn’t sure that Camila wouldn’t get lonely.

 

When left without Lauren’s company, Camila might just leave the house and go back to wandering the streets, digging through trashcans and collecting the things that amused her and living in an abandoned building with only her stray cat for company and leaving Lauren by herself.

 

Lauren didn’t want Camila to go back to living alone in a condemned place anymore than Lauren wanted to go back to living alone in her grandmother’s house. When Camila was there it was their house. When she wasn’t it was a vast, empty space. No ghosts in the walls like Lauren had once imagined. Just nothingness, emptiness.

 

With an anxious sigh Lauren went back to glaring at her Styrofoam coffee cup. If Camila was here she would find something magical in that cup. Lauren poked it curiously with a purple fingernail. The cup tipped onto its side, spilling tepid coffee across the desk.

 

Lauren frowned. Not magical at all.

——-

The strange, jittery feeling did not leave Lauren all that day at work. Her fingers twitched constantly, calling her attention each time to the purple nail polish, and her heart beat to a strange unfamiliar rhythm. She almost called Camila too many times to count, holding her cellphone in her anxious hand. Camila hated when the phone rang, though, and she always flinched away from the sudden noise.

 

Lauren left work early and only managed not to speed home with the thought of Camila’s distress at the idea.

 

The house was undisturbed when Lauren drove up. It was some small comfort that the house had not faded while she was gone, disappeared with Camila in it like a dream.

 

“Camila?” Lauren called when she opened the door. She did not have to look for Camila. When she stepped into the house, she was immediately greeted by a whirlwind of brown hair and grabbing fingers and tight hugs. The whirlwind attached to her like a familiar limpet, knocking them both back against the door with the momentum of the launched attack.

 

Lauren gasped as her back met the solid wood of the door, fingernails digging into her skin as Camila’s arms wrapped possessively around her neck.

 

“Um,” Lauren said intelligently, blinking rapidly and suddenly unable to think of anything but the feel of Camila’s warmth against her, Camila’s arms wrapped around her, Camila’s cheek pressed against Lauren’s neck and her hair tickling Lauren’s nose, the smell of Lauren’s shampoo. Lauren swallowed thickly, reaching to touch Camila’s hair in what might have been a comforting motion, but Camila only pressed her face closer against Lauren’s neck, her fingers tightening like Lauren might try to push her away. Lauren withdrew her hand immediately, confused. “Honey, I’m home?”

 

“Lolo,” Camila said softly, her voice a strange inflection. Lauren’s neck was wet.

 

_Oh God._

 

Lauren touched Camila’s shoulder hesitantly and Camila pulled away only a few inches so Lauren could see her eyes glittering unnaturally.

 

“You weren’t here,” Camila said desperately. “I looked for you, and no one knew where you were. I asked – the walls wouldn’t talk to me. Don’t go away.”

 

“I wasn’t…” Lauren said, startled by Camila’s sudden anxiety. Camila usually seemed so pleased with the terrible world around her, unaffected. “I work at a coffee shop. I saw you there once, remember?” Lauren offered consolingly.

 

Camila shook her head.

 

“You don’t remember,” Lauren said obviously, biting her lip. “Okay, but, you stayed here before when I went to work. You remember that, right? You made the big bow.”

 

Camila shook her head frantically, her long hair whipping across her face.

 

“Oh,” Lauren said, at a loss. Camila looked unsteady, her eyes wide and red rimmed and her hands grasping nothingness at her sides. Lauren shifted worriedly. “Did you, uh, did you miss me?”

 

Camila sniffed, blinked, and promptly burst into tears.

 

“Oh God,” Lauren says, wide eyed. “Oh God, you’re not supposed to do that. Please don’t do that.” Camila whined, tears falling, and Lauren realized abruptly that of all the things to say, that probably wasn’t the right one, and she was fucking it up already. “I mean, you can. But don’t. Please don’t.”

 

Camila looked unconvinced through her tears.

 

Maybe Lauren should have explained to Camila what working at Cocoa’s entailed. Maybe Lauren should have told her when she was leaving. Maybe Lauren shouldn’t have left at all.

 

Lauren shifted nervously, reaching a hand out to touch Camila and then retracting it hastily; worried she might just make it worse.

 

“You’re not wearing a bow,” Lauren observed uselessly. The tears were rolling down Camila’s cheeks. Camila’s face was pink with exertion, her deep brown eyes, bright and shining in the hallway light. “I mean, you still look pretty. You look…” Lauren trailed off lamely as more tears rolled down Camila’s cheeks, unhindered, her lip trembling pitifully. “It’s a nice look on you?”

 

Camila hitched a sob.

 

Lauren shut her mouth.

 

“You came back,” Camila said tearfully.

 

Like Lauren wouldn’t have come back, like she would have just left Camila.

 

Being left was supposed to be Lauren’s fear. Camila was the one with bigger things to find in the world, the one who would change and grow and not look back. Camila would leave and Lauren would be left. That was how it worked, that was how it had always worked.

 

Lauren’s heart ached with the thought that Camila would worry Lauren would leave  _her_ , that Camila would think Lauren ever could, that she’d ever want to.

 

Lauren reached her hand out again uncertainly and this time Camila saw it, latched on immediately. Camila squeezed unexpectedly hard, pressing her face into Lauren’s neck again and Lauren took the hint, relaxing into the embrace and touching the back of Camila’s head to hold her there.

 

“You know I wouldn’t leave you,” Lauren said softly into Camila’s hair, even though it seemed that Camila didn’t know after all. Camila seemed to just  _know_  everything and Lauren didn’t see how she wouldn’t know that.

 

“You left,” Camila accused, her lips tickling Lauren’s throat. “You left me.”

 

“I didn’t,” Lauren denied immediately, even though she had. “I wouldn’t.” Camila hitched another sob. “Absence makes the heart grow fonder?” Lauren offered helplessly, repeating Camila’s own words back to her in some feeble hope of comforting her.

 

Camila drew back, blinking with bright eyes, a slow realization on her face. Lauren wasn’t sure exactly what the realization was. She couldn’t bring herself to care as Camila sniffed and looked immediately steadier.

 

“Oh,” said Camila, as if Lauren had revealed some secret truth. She blinked a few times, the gloss of tears disappearing from her eyes in seconds.

 

Lauren watched her and grinned, proud that she’d been able to reassure Camila.

 

Then Camila leaned forward and kissed her.

 

Her lips were soft against Lauren’s, curious but not hesitant, not afraid of how Lauren would react, not afraid that Lauren would reject her. Lauren would have liked to say she didn’t kiss Camila back. She would have liked to say she didn’t slip a hand through Camila’s hair to hold the back of her head, pulling Camila closer.

 

She would have liked to, but it would have been a lie.

 

It was one endless moment, Camila’s lips soft on hers. A second or forever.

 

When Lauren pulled back slowly, shocked or reluctant, Camila’s eyes were half closed, her cheeks still pink from tears and her lips wet. Lauren clutched at the hem of her sweatshirt tightly with some suppressed emotion, her throat dry but her mouth tingling.

 

“You can’t…” Lauren trailed off, the words useless and lost on her lips. “What… why?” she asked pathetically, her voice hoarse.

 

Camila tilted her head to the side, curious and fragile in the light, familiar and magic. “You’re my soul mate,” she said simply, like that explained everything. Maybe to Camila it did. “And I’m yours.”

 

Lauren licked her lips, tasting Camila on them. She shivered and Camila stepped closer with adoring eyes, and Lauren hated herself for it. When Camila reached for her, Lauren pushed her firmly away. Her nails pressing punishingly into her palms as Camila watched her, too trusting. “I’m not that kind of soul mate.”


	16. From The Other Side

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

Camila took the rejection better than Lauren did.

 

There was a routine to life, a norm that Lauren needed to hold onto. Even when Lauren hated the routine, it was still comfortable, it was still the way things should be. The puzzle pieces fit in a certain way, the same way Lauren’s beanies fit on her drawers, organized and perfect.

 

Camila wasn’t supposed to want her that way. Lauren wasn’t supposed to want Camila that way. If she didn’t know anything else, she knew that.

 

So Lauren did what Lauren was best at. She took the memory of the kiss and shoved it to the back of her mind. She pretended it hadn’t happened.

 

Lauren didn’t think of what could have been or even if she would have wanted it to be that way. She didn’t wonder if Camila would leave now. She didn’t wonder what she would do without Camila. Lauren didn’t think of the feel of Camila in her arms, Camila’s stupid smile and the stupid way she talked and the stupid way she made Lauren’s life so much better. She didn’t think of Camila’s soft lips and her possessive fingers and her trusting eyes.

 

Lauren didn’t count the moments, the seconds since Camila’s lips had met hers.

 

She did count the days.

 

The first day was the hardest. Everything faded with time.

 

With her heart trying to knife its way out of her chest with every breath, Lauren had to hope everything faded with time.

 

It was the first night Lauren slept alone in a bed that had almost been theirs. She woke to emptiness and, in her sleepy haze, she didn’t know why.

 

Lauren grumbled sleepily, patting her hand across the pillow where Camila’s head should have been but inexplicably was not. “Camz…?”

 

Lauren hoped Camila wasn’t in the closet rearranging her beanies again.

 

She rubbed her eyes with the back of her hand, looking around the empty room. Silence was extremely rare in Camila’s presence. Even when she slept, Camila mumbled and huffed and talked sleepily about the evils of lamp posts.

 

The silence in Camila’s absence was louder than Camila ever could have been.

 

“Oh,” Lauren said to the empty room, awareness retuning to her in a sickening rush.  _Oh._

 

Somehow, still, Lauren knew Camila hadn’t left. It was the difference between silence and deafness.

 

The smell of coffee was wafting under the door frame. Lauren dressed slowly, trying to prepare herself for Camila’s unhappiness, trying to prepare herself to say no to Camila’s clinging fingers and wanting looks.

 

When Lauren walked into the kitchen, Camila was wearing a faded apron with butterflies on it and one of Lauren’s red beanies on her head. She was dancing with a spatula.

 

Lauren glanced frantically around the room, half worried that Camila had started up the stove and was attempting some elaborate dish made of inedible ingredients. The stove was off, to Lauren’s great relief. Camila did not appear to actually be cooking, simply dancing with a spatula.

 

“Lolo!” Camila called with unexpected cheerfulness, skipping over to drape herself over Lauren’s shoulders. Her touch made Lauren’s skin prickle like she’d just woken up.

 

Lauren would have pulled away.

 

“I made a friend,” Camila said, tapping the metal of the spatula merrily against Lauren’s cheek. Lauren hooked her fingers around Camila’s wrist without thinking.

 

“What’s his name?” Lauren asked, her voice scratchy from sleep.

 

“ _Her_  name,” Camila corrected, tapping Lauren again on the cheek in emphasis, “is Ariana.” When Lauren nodded vaguely, Camila huffed discontentedly against her neck. “Don’t be rude, Lauren! Say hello. She likes you, of course.”

 

Camila didn’t have a single friend who didn’t like Lauren. Even now. “Camila…” Lauren said haltingly, turning so she was facing Camila who was examining her spatula thoughtfully. Lauren didn’t know what words she should say but she was sure there was something she was supposed to say now –  _it_ _’_ _s not you, it_ _’_ _s me?_  – after the silence last night.

 

There hadn’t been a single word on Lauren’s lips, a single word in her mind after pushing Camila away. In a reaction as unexpected as the kiss itself, Camila hadn’t said anything either.

 

She hadn’t disagreed with Lauren. She hadn’t insisted that Lauren was her soul mate. She hadn’t even rambled about the stars. She hadn’t sung any incomprehensible lyrics or demanded that Lauren play the guitar. When Lauren had mumbled something about Camila sleeping in her own room, Camila had gone without complaint.

 

An agreeable, silent, and undemanding Camila was not something Lauren had seen before and she didn’t know what it meant. She didn’t like it. It was unnatural for Camila. Lauren liked Camila the way she was – strange and stubborn and bright and laughing and musical and magical and Camila.

 

Lauren hated to think that something she had done would dull Camila down, take something away from her.

 

But Lauren wasn’t that kind of soul mate, just couldn’t be.

 

Camila had lived in an abandoned building, she’d valued a sweatshirt more than a Rolex, she’d dug unthinkingly through trash cans, given herself a headache from paint fumes by staring up at two stars drawn on a ceiling for hours.

 

She’d burned curious fingers in the hot flame of a fire.

 

Lauren wouldn’t be the fire that hurt Camila. Lauren would be the one pulling Camila away from the fire, making it better, keeping her safe.

 

Camila might have been offering, but that didn’t mean Lauren could take from her.

 

Whether or not Lauren wanted to, was a non-issue in the end.

 

“She really likes you,” Camila was saying consolingly to the spatula, stroking the handle in what Lauren thought was probably supposed to be a comforting manner. “She’s just shy, don’t worry. She’ll come around.”

 

“Camila—” Lauren started in protest but Camila glanced away from the spatula to give her an annoyed look, one eyebrow raised in an expression that said she thought Lauren was being more dense than usual.

 

Lauren snapped her mouth shut and Camila smiled in reward before going back to stroking the spatula. “Right,” Lauren said, stepping back and only then realizing her fingers were hooked around Camila’s wrist. She released them reluctantly. “Who wants cereal?”

 

Camila was busy whispering something secretive to the spatula that Lauren was pretty sure was about her. Lauren got her a bowl of cereal with happy, colorful little marshmallows in it anyway.

 

“We’ll plant a tree today,” Camila declared over breakfast.

 

They planted a tree every day. They’d planted a guitar pick tree, a light bulb tree, and even a bow tree.

 

“Okay,” Lauren agreed easily. Camila rewarded her with a bright, genuine smile, somehow happy with the things she was given, even when they weren’t what she wanted or needed.

 

“What day is it today?” Lauren asked after a moment, her breakfast unappetizing in front of her. Lauren wondered if Camila would say Monday. Lauren wondered if Michael, someone right for Camila, would step out of the woodwork and take Camila away. Someone who would give Camila everything she wanted and needed.

 

Lauren couldn’t be that for Camila. She still couldn’t. She just… didn’t want anyone else to be it, either.

 

Camila separated another marshmallow out of her cereal and didn’t answer.

 

Not today, then.

 

Lauren’s shoulders sagged with relief.

 

“Don’t worry,” Camila said clearly. Lauren glanced up to find Camila’s eyes focused intently on her.

 

“I’m not your soul mate,” Lauren said, the words jumbled on her lips. They burned. “Are you going to go look for that person? Follow the stars and go through your soul mate’s trash and move into your soul mate’s house and…”

 

Camila just shook her head, giving Lauren a fondly exasperated look. “You’re my soul mate.”

 

“I’m not,” she said, so stupid. “I’m not, I can’t…” Camila raised an eyebrow. “Be that.”

 

“You’re Lauren,” Camila said simply, like it was all so obvious to her. Lauren wished it could be so simple. “You’re my Lolo.”

 

 _I want to be_ , Lauren almost said. She stopped herself at the last moment and stabbed herself in the mouth with her spoon instead.

——-

They planted a tree.

 

It was the third apple core in the garden. It hardly fit between the guitar pick and the marshmallow in the tiny space of cleared ground in a long since dead garden. Lauren wasn’t sure if Camila remembered how many trees they’d planted there.

 

She didn’t know how long they sat, Camila staring intently at the ground, just waiting. Lauren stared at the yellow grass, she stared at the cat by the fence, she stared at the concrete of the house, she stared at Mrs. Smith, staring back at her through binoculars from her window.

 

She tried not to stare at Camila.

 

Camila had a tiny mole below her bottom lip. Of course, Lauren had not noticed that.

 

“It won’t grow for awhile,” Lauren warned, watching Camila watch the ground. It probably would never grow.

 

“It’s growing now,” Camila disagreed, always optimistic and so damn sure. “You just can’t see it.”

 

Lauren looked at the dirt dubiously. “How do you know?”

 

Camila turned to gaze at Lauren affectionately in answer. Their eyes met to some strange heat running through Lauren’s veins.

 

Lauren looked away and Camila threw herself back into the grass to stare up at the sky. Lauren bit her lip nervously and reminded herself that everything faded with time.

 

Camila’s laughter tingled through the air, happy without reason.

 

“Watching the stars?” Lauren asked. She moved to lie on her back next to Camila, see what Camila was seeing. The sun shined brightly in Lauren’s eyes and she winced, rolling on her side to face Camila instead. Camila was still staring straight up, unbothered.

 

Lauren would have to get Camila a pair of sunglasses – she could go blind like that. Lauren had heard things.

 

“No,” Camila said. “This time they’re watching me.”

——-

Even when the world around Lauren was confusing and dizzying, music was unchanging.

 

Camila brought music back to Lauren’s life.

 

When Lauren picked up the guitar after pushing Camila away, there was no music.

 

She sat on the couch, the guitar in her lap as Camila lay on the floor across the room, reading an upside down cookbook.

 

When Lauren strummed the pick against the strings there was only noise. It wasn’t loud and abrupt like it would have been in Camila’s hands, it wasn’t melodious like it should have been, it didn’t mean anything.

 

She played more, faster and harder, but it still didn’t sound like music. Her grandmother didn’t smile proudly. Camila didn’t sing along.

 

Lauren Jauregui picked up her guitar and it still didn’t matter.

 

A string snapped, nearly missing cutting against Lauren’s skin. “Shit!” she cursed loudly. She threw her guitar pick across the room in frustration.

 

And then Camila was there, crawling across the floor to pick up the little piece of plastic, murmuring comfortingly to it. She crawled back to Lauren with the pick cupped safely in her hand. Lauren’s mouth opened without words and Camila knelt by her feet, her fingers curled around Lauren’s, heat in Lauren’s cold hands.

 

“You’ll see,” Camila said in a consoling tone, slipping the pick back into Lauren’s palm.

 

“I don’t  _see_  anything,” Lauren said hopelessly. “You keep saying… What am I even supposed to be looking for? Why can’t you just show me?”

 

“I am showing you. You’ll see.” Camila turned to lean heavily against Lauren’s legs, the warmth of her breathing body comforting against Lauren’s.

 

Lauren strummed another tuneless chord and Camila sang a strange note against Lauren’s knee.

 

Lauren may not have been any good at it, but at least she was still a rock star.

——-

Lauren’s bed had never been empty since she met Camila.

 

It had just been a bed in a room in a house that was not really hers. It didn’t matter that when she rolled over there was no one’s warmth pressed up against her, no one’s untamed hair to get stuck in her mouth, no one’s hot breath against her shoulder or their cold feet against her shin.

 

It didn’t hurt to lose something you’d never had. It hurt now.

 

But Lauren hadn’t had Camila, didn’t have Camila, and couldn’t have Camila.

 

Even when Camila was leaning sleepily against the door frame across the hall, wearing Lauren’s pajamas with her hair messy and still damp with the same shampoo Lauren used, a look on her face that Lauren could only have described as longing.

 

Still.

 

“Good night,” Lauren said throatily, taking a step back into her room and grasping the doorknob in sweaty fingers.

 

Camila pursed her lips, not moving to follow Lauren. Lauren could tell she was vibrating with it, wanted to shove herself up in Lauren’s space like she usually did, insist until Lauren gave in.

 

For some reason this time she didn’t.

 

Lauren almost wished she would.

 

Camila didn’t close her door, only disappeared into the darkness of the room that they were pretending was hers. Separate spaces for separate people.

 

Lauren stood there, her hand curved around the metal of her doorknob as she heard the rustling of sheets, Camila’s quiet sigh as she relaxed down into the blankets. Camila was probably clutching the seam of the pillow like she usually did. She’d purse her lips and lick them slowly, burying her nose in the fabric of her pillow and breathing in the scent. Her eyelids would flutter, adapting to the darkness, her lashes black against her skin even in the dull light. Then she’d press herself close to Lauren, the warmth of her skin hot against Lauren’s and her breath tickling Lauren’s ear. She’d pull at Lauren’s hair and comb her fingers through it, humming happily until she was falling asleep or Lauren was.

 

Except this time Lauren wouldn’t be there.

 

Lauren slammed her door violently shut against the need not to close it at all.

 

She threw herself agitatedly down into the bed where Camila should have been. When Lauren rolled over to stare up at the ceiling all she could see were the little glow in the dark stars Camila had glued up there.

 

She lasted eight minutes. It wasn’t half bad considering she’d been aiming for ten.

 

The door to Camila’s room was still open, a plain invitation.

 

Camila was curled on her side in the bed. Lauren walked over as quietly as she could, cursing as she stumbled in the dark, far from stealthy.

 

Camila was pressed close to the edge of the bed, not taking up the whole space even when she had it all to herself. She looked so small then, like she would have drowned in the sheets and pillows. Camila looked fragile and lonely and small, nothing like the passionate and excitable person Lauren knew she was, who would cling to Lauren’s heat and fight with the blankets and kick Lauren if she tried to get her fair share of their pillow.

 

Camila’s hair was messy like it always was, down and soft around her face, wisps of it fanned across her cheek. Lauren brushed a strand away unthinkingly, revealing soft lips – Lauren knew the feel of those lips on hers – and dark eyelashes.

 

Camila’s eyes were pressed too tightly shut like it took some serious effort and concentration to sleep. Or to pretend to be asleep.

 

A fond smile pulled at Lauren’s lips. She pressed her cool palm against Camila’s warm cheek for a moment before pulling it slowly away, hyper aware of the way Camila tried to follow the touch.

 

“Still awake?”

 

“No,” Camila denied childishly, her eyes still pressed shut.

 

Lauren snorted softly, running her thumb down the line of Camila’s jaw. Camila turned towards her hand instinctively.

 

Her finger curled painfully around Lauren’s wrist as if Lauren planned on pulling away. Camila pulled plaintively on Lauren’s arm. Lauren obeyed the unvoiced command and crawled into the bed with her. Camila curled immediately towards Lauren, nuzzling her shoulder and her lips soft against Lauren’s skin.

 

“Are you cold?” Lauren asked, her voice quiet in the dark despite the fact that they were both awake, had never been asleep.

 

“So cold,” Camila whispered back, wrapping a warm arm around Lauren’s waist, cuddling up to her like she really was cold despite the fire between them.

 

Lauren relaxed against her touch and pulled Camila impossibly closer with an arm around Camila’s shoulders. They clung to each other. “Me too.”


	17. A Seed That Grows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

Camila did not give up.

 

Lauren doubted Camila had ever given up on anything.

 

She didn’t give up on the impossible trees growing. She didn’t give up on Michael, who was supposedly still coming on Monday. She didn’t give up on Lauren.

 

Lauren knew Camila hadn’t given up, but Camila was quiet, secretive in a way that was obvious.

 

Camila plotted quietly and Lauren picked up her guitar and began to play a tentative song, the only music that made sense.

 

A song for Camila.

——-

A lot of things changed when Camila moved in. Lauren shared her bed, because Camila got cold when she was alone. She shared her food, because the meals on Lauren’s plate were always more appetizing to Camila than her own. She shared her clothes and she was prepared for Camila to cut the sleeves off of perfectly good t-shirts to create peculiar costumes out of them.

 

Lauren felt different with Camila too, alive, like she knew every word that left her lips and every color around her, every touch on her fingertips.

 

She withdrew money from the inheritance she’d never wanted to touch, never wanted to think about, never wanted to acknowledge. She bought Camila bows and pizza and a telescope.

 

Lauren sat high on the roof at Camila’s side to watch the stars that did not shine during the day. She jumped for the phone every time it rang so Camila wouldn’t be upset by the sound.

 

Most of those things were good, wonderful in a way Lauren wasn’t sure she wanted to admit to, but there was the occasional mishap. When Lauren dove for the ringing phone it meant she didn’t check the caller ID.

 

It meant when she picked up the receiver, her mother’s grating, familiar voice was on the other end, and Lauren wasn’t prepared for it.

 

“Hello,” Lauren said mechanically upon hearing her voice. “This is the voicemail of Lauren Jauregui. I’m not in right now. If you have a message, please leave your name and number after the—”

 

 _“_ _Lauren!_ _”_  Clara snapped, and Lauren winced and sighed in defeat.

 

It was worth a shot.

 

“Sorry, Mom,” Lauren mumbled, pressing the phone closer to her ear. She was sitting on the couch, watching Camila spin around the room and dance with a graceful awkwardness. Music was beating loudly out of the stereo speakers, making the room vibrate with more than just Camila’s energy. It also made it fairly hard to have a conversation.

 

It wasn’t a conversation Lauren wanted to have anyway, really.

 

Lauren winced as her mother snapped her name again. “Sorry, what was it you wanted?”

 

 _“_ _Molly told me you_ _’_ _ve been skipping work, Lauren,_ _”_  Clara’s voice crackled over the connection.

 

“Mmhmm.” Lauren stifled a laugh as Camila jumped excitedly onto the couch beside her, poking Lauren with her socked foot expectantly. “What are you doing?” Lauren asked, laughing as Camila pulled insistently on a strand of her hair. “I’m not going to dance with you.”

 

_“_ _What on_ _—_ _Lauren!_ _”_

 

“Oh,” Lauren shook her head, then frowned. “Wait, Molly?” She didn’t work with anyone named Molly.

 

 _“_ _Molly Smith!_ _”_  Lauren could feel her mother’s disapproving glare over the phone.  _“_ _Don_ _’_ _t you even know the names of your neighbors?_ _”_

 

“Ah…” Lauren mumbled, trying to wave Camila’s hand away as she grabbed more of Lauren’s hair and tried to pull Lauren up off the couch. “Mrs. Smith. Right. You’re friends with Mrs. Smith. Of course you are.”

 

“Smars,” Camila offered helpfully.

 

“Smars and my mother,” Lauren agreed, grabbing Camila’s wrist before she yanked out Lauren’s hair and pulling Camila down on the couch beside her. Camila frowned when she found herself sitting. She gave Lauren a look that was both confused and indignant.

 

Lauren brushed a piece of Camila’s hair away from her face, tucking it behind her ear.

 

“It’s not a problem,” Lauren said into the phone at her mother’s continued loud disapproval. “If I get fired I’ll apply at Starbucks, move up in the world. I know what all their coffees are anyway.”

 

 _“_ _Molly said,_ _”_  Clara said, her voice still harsh. It usually was, Lauren found.  _“_ _She said you let a homeless girl move into mother_ _’_ _s house._ _”_

 

“It’s my house,” Lauren snapped defensively. Camila eyed the telephone pressed to Lauren’s ear suspiciously. “And she’s not homeless if her home is here, is she.”

 

 _“_ _Irresponsible,_ _”_  Clara snapped, and Camila whined as Lauren clenched her jaw.  _“_ _She gave you that house, Lauren, and all that_ money _. She_ _—”_

 

“To me,” Lauren returned vindictively. “To me and not to you. She believed in me. She knew I would be a rock star.”

 

Clara responded with cold silence. Camila was watching Lauren with unreadable eyes.

 

“I am. I’m making music,” Lauren said with forced lightness, trying to lead the conversation to less hostile territory. It was the first conversation she’d had with her mother in months. Lauren didn’t want it to end badly. She avoided her enough as it was. “I’ve got Camila now, and I’ve got my guitar, we’re—”

 

The dial tone blared painfully in Lauren’s ear.

 

“Shit,” Lauren slammed the phone down into its holster despite the fact that her mother had apparently already hung up and wouldn’t be able to hear her anger.

 

The music was still blaring loudly. Camila moved fluidly to her feet but didn’t try to pull Lauren into a dance again. She turned the stereo off before sitting close to Lauren, their legs pressed together.

 

Camila said nothing, strangely, only curling her fingers around Lauren’s wrist, stroking softly with her fingertips.

 

“She doesn’t trust me,” Lauren blurted out. “She never did. She never liked anything I did.”

 

Camila’s fingers still on her wrist.

 

“My grandmother did,” Lauren told her, thinking of her mother’s face when they’d been read the will. “She believed in me.”

 

“Don’t throw that away,” Camila said clearly. Lauren turned toward her curiously. Camila looked strangely serious, her eyes on Lauren like they were never meant for looking at anything else.

 

“I won’t,” Lauren said. “I won’t throw it away.”

 

Camila smiled with a brightness that made Lauren’s stomach swirl crazily.

 

 _I won_ _’_ _t throw you away either,_  Lauren promised her silently.

 

When Clara called back to tell her she should come visit her the following Wednesday, Lauren told her she couldn’t. They visited Ben on Wednesdays.

——-

They walked everywhere. They walked to the gas station for candy, they walked to the outlet stores because they couldn’t walk to the mall. They walked to the park to see Sparkles from a new angle and to the graveyard to visit Ben.

 

Just like the roof, where the graveyard had once made Lauren nervous it now felt comfortable and safe, someplace Camila liked to be and someplace worth being.

 

They walked to the market and fast food restaurants. Camila’s favorite was a pizza place that was much too close to the old abandoned building she’d lived in for Lauren’s comfort.

 

Camila did not blend in, and no matter where they went eyes were on her. Lauren couldn’t really blame anyone – it was hard to take her eyes off of Camila, too.

 

So when the blond beach boy at the pizza place was watching Camila closely from the moment they stepped through the door, Lauren wasn’t all the surprised. Her fingers twitched with some protective urge, but mostly Lauren just stuck close to Camila like she always did and tried to talk her out of ordering pineapple on the pizza.

 

They sat at a rickety table in the corner, Camila jabbering happily about the florescent lights and Lauren nodding along. The blond was the one to bring them their pizza, and when he stepped up to the table Camila turned her megawatt smile on the kid.

 

“Hello, Drew!” Camila greeted amicably.

 

Lauren gave the guy a considering glance. Not everyone reacted positively to Camila’s strange charm. The worker at the gas station curled his lips distastefully every time he saw Camila, laughing meanly when Camila talked excitedly. And Camila would grin back at him, because to Camila a laugh was a laugh, a joyful sound, and it didn’t matter that the guy probably hated her simply for being herself.

 

The blond server, now dubbed Drew, looked friendly though, and when he handed the pizza to Camila, he smiled and looked her in the eye like few people were willing to do once they realized Camila was outside their box of normalcy.

 

“Hey, Camila,” said Drew.

 

Lauren choked on her soda.

 

Camila patted Lauren’s shoulder with a worried crease between her eyebrows. “Don’t forget to breathe, Lolo,” she scolded.

 

“Was that Diet?” Drew asked, shifting nervously to glance at the soda as Lauren coughed, her eyes wet. “The Diet is always—I think it’s toxic or something. Do you want something else? Sorry about that.”

 

“No,” Lauren croaked out, wiping at her eyes and patting at Camila’s clutching fingers. “No. You know her. You know Camila?”

 

Lauren had, in some way, started to think that Camila was untouched by everything around her. That Camila was Lauren’s and no one else’s, and that Camila hadn’t existed – that neither of them had existed? – before they’d met each other over an upturned trashcan.

 

Drew glanced between them haltingly. “Sure,” he said, like he didn’t know why it was a big deal. “I haven’t seen her in awhile…” Drew looked to Camila with an odd hesitation. “Where have you been lately?”

 

Strangely, Camila seemed mostly uninterested in Drew. She pulled at Lauren’s hair, her fingers still rubbing Lauren’s back. “Are the hidden snakes trying to choke you?” Camila asked worriedly. “I could sing to them.”

 

Camila pressed her lips close to Lauren’s ear, her breath tickling and a song on her lips. Lauren shivered and blushed when she noticed Drew’s gaze on them.

 

“She’s been with me,” Lauren said, because it seemed like something she should say. Camila’s lips brushed her ear, twitching, and Lauren knew she was smiling, because Camila always was. Lauren always wanted her to be. Drew nodded, watching Lauren with a quiet thoughtfulness, and Lauren frowned. “Where have you been?” Lauren asked, even though she didn’t actually know who the guy was. If he knew Camila, knew where Camila had been living…

 

Drew shifted – Lauren thought he looked like a shifty sort of person – and shrugged, taking a step back. “Just here making pizzas.” Drew was already turning anyway. “Talk to you later, Camila,” he said over his shoulder. “You can always come when you’re hungry, remember?”

 

“Hey, wait!” Lauren called after him, but was promptly ignored.

 

Lauren had the sudden impulse to chase after the blond, but Camila had her hands in Lauren’s hair and Drew was disappearing behind a swinging door.

 

“Wait,” Lauren said pathetically to the empty room.

 

“I’m waiting,” Camila promised, stroking Lauren’s neck. Lauren turned toward her, noting Camila’s worried eyes, affectionate smile.

 

“You know him?”

 

Camila nodded indulgently. “Drew. Drew comes to see Michael,” Camila said, giving Lauren’s slice of pizza a predatory look, even though she had her own in front of her. “And he has pizza,” Camila mumbled, reaching out with stealthy fingers to grab Lauren’s slice and take a bite of it, meeting Lauren’s eyes innocently as she did.

 

“How does he know Michael?” Lauren asked, hoping for any information she could get out of Camila, about Camila. Where did you come from and how long are you staying?

 

Camila set Lauren’s slice of pizza back down on her plate and proceeded to act like she had not just taken a large bite out of it. “Michael makes everything gray for him,” Camila said with a thoughtful frown. “I told him, but he said he liked things gray. Why would he want things to be gray, Lolo? Everything is so colorful.”

 

Camila sounded genuinely confused at the idea. Her eyes were unfocused like they got sometimes. Lauren would have liked to give Camila an answer if she’d understood the question.

 

“When was the last time you saw him?” Lauren asked instead.

 

Camila blinked rapidly, glancing down at her hands. She licked her fingers of pizza sauce with disinterest. Lauren tried not to stare, but when Camila glanced up and met her eyes, Lauren couldn’t look away.

 

“Who?”

 

“Drew,” Lauren provided, waving toward the swinging door to the back of the pizza place where undoubtedly the shifty blond was hiding. “Big guy, blond hair. You knew him. Or, know him…?”

 

“Oh,” Camila said, blinking and glancing curiously at the door like it had the answers. The door stayed shut. “Sometimes I forget things,” Camila admitted.

 

Lauren had noticed.

 

“It’s okay,” she said, stroking Camila’s silky hair, questions forgotten. Lauren didn’t care about Drew – Lauren had Camila. “You remember the important stuff.”

 

Camila smiled brightly and Lauren had to look away under the intensity of her smile, a sun reflecting in her brown eyes. She looked out the window; the smoggy streets looked dark, shaded by gray clouds, preparing for a storm.

 

“Come on,” Lauren said, taking Camila’s hand. “Let’s go home.”

——-

“It’s raining inside,” Camila said, sounding intrigued.

 

“Yep,” Lauren agreed, watching the slowly growing wet spot in the middle of the living room as water dripped through the leak in the ceiling.

 

“I like it,” Camila said decisively.

 

Lauren laughed, unable to stop the affection from welling up in her chest. “You would.”

 

It had been raining unusually often lately, and Lauren couldn’t help but to be relieved every time that Camila was with her, that Camila had someplace dry and safe to sleep, even if Camila was unconcerned with things like safety. Especially, because Camila was unconcerned with it.

 

“The rain can stay inside too,” Camila said. “Like me.”

 

“Not quite like you,” Lauren denied, getting up to stand beside Camila who was sitting by the windowsill. Camila smiled secretively and Lauren did not elaborate.

 

It was raining hard outside, wet and gray, the streets slick with oil and the trees sagging under the weight. Everything looked soaked down and glazed, sick.

 

“It’s so pretty,” Camila breathed, looking out the same window but seeing something entirely different. Lauren looked at the damp window and the soaked concrete and didn’t see it, but just the fact that Camila thought it was pretty gave it something special.

 

“Yeah…” Lauren said slowly, and it wasn’t even a lie. Camila made everything around her better, worthwhile and amazing in its own way. Her energy and awe spread like wildfire onto everything, even onto Lauren.

 

Camila herself was always the most amazing, the most special, the most beautiful. Lauren watched her, spellbound. Camila stared out at the world, her eyes bright and captivated and her fingers curious against the cold glass of the window.

 

She was magical and dangerous. She bulldozed all of Lauren’s defenses away, all of Lauren’s complaints. Everything Lauren had built around herself, protected herself with and split herself off with, Camila knocked it away, moved through it with the simple flick of a delicate wrist. And then Lauren had nothing, but she had Camila.

 

She wanted to have Camila.

 

Lauren coughed nervously and Camila turned from the dirty window to watch her curiously. “You want to go out there?” Lauren asked, nodding her head toward the wet yard.

 

Camila grinned.

 

They sloshed through the muddy water in the backyard, Camila in one of Lauren’s sweatshirts as she splashed through the puddles, pulling Lauren along with her. Camila laughed and kicked at the water, her hand wrapped around Lauren’s, so easily pleased with everything.

 

They stopped slowly on the path to the garden. When Lauren turned toward Camila in the soaking rain, Camila was reaching out to her with something glimmering in her hand.

 

“Make a wish,” Camila said, smiling. She placed the quarter safely in Lauren’s palm.

 

Lauren didn’t know what she would have wished for – Lauren didn’t believe in wishes. But Camila was next to her, swaying in the wind, and Lauren threw the quarter into a puddle with some unvoiced longing.

 

The metal shined in the water for only a moment before Camila leaned down to pick the coin up again. She slipped the cold metal back into her pocket and Lauren didn’t bother telling her you didn’t get the coin back after you made a wish.

 

Lauren figured her wishes were safer off with Camila anyway.

 

“Do you want to make a wish too?” Lauren asked, holding on to Camila’s arm as she stepped forward.

 

Camila laughed as rain splattered against her skin, weighing her hair down. She tugged Lauren forward again. “No,” she said simply, and Lauren had to hope that meant Camila had everything she needed, at least for now.

 

Lauren watched as Camila tromped happily around the yard, speaking to the trees and having short, abruptly ending conversations that Lauren thought might have been Camila trying to greet each raindrop before it hit the ground.

 

Lauren stood by the garden, staring down at the dirt, now mud, that Camila thought would bring her a forest. In the dirt, something caught Lauren’s eyes.

 

She knelt down slowly, disbelieving that any of the trees would have taken root.

 

When Lauren reached out to brush the remaining mud away from the thing it was not a growing tree.

 

It was her guitar pick.

 

The hard rain had washed the dirt away, leaving the guitar pick they had planted in Camila’s expectation of a guitar tree.

 

“Oh,” Camila said, suddenly at Lauren’s side. She looked over Lauren’s shoulder curiously, sounding pleased and not at all surprised. “It’s growing already.”

——-

 It’s all about the light.

 

Camila is positive it’s all about the light. Lauren doesn’t have enough light in her life. There is a brightness inside of Lauren that is smoldering. It tingles in Camila’s ears. Lauren can’t see it yet.

 

Maybe Lauren doesn’t want to see it yet?

 

Camila can hear it and feel it and someday Lauren will let her touch it, Lauren will let go of the dullness that doesn’t belong inside of her. Camila will wait. Camila can wait.

 

Inside of Lauren there is a light that is growing like a seed.

 

And Camila is waiting.


	18. Backwards and Forwards

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

Camila got sick and Lauren kissed her.

 

It was the rain. Lauren was positive she could blame the whole thing on the rain. She’d always heard that staying out in a storm would make you sick.

 

Camila had been trying to befriend the rain but clearly it hadn’t wanted to be friends. Lauren didn’t see why not.

 

They spent all evening under the downpour, Camila laughing and complimenting the dew covered leaves and telling Lauren excitedly how all of the city would be green when the rainbow came.

 

Lauren had loved it. She’d been there beside Camila and she’d anticipated the rainbow that hadn’t come in the darkness, but it didn’t matter because Camila was there, a kaleidoscope of color within herself.

 

Camila’s hair was still damp when she’d fallen asleep, Lauren’s fingers numb as she raked them through the knotted locks.

 

In the morning, Lauren woke to feed the stray cats that she knew would be waiting on the back porch. When she left the bed, Camila was still fast asleep but Lauren wasn’t surprised to hear Camila’s soft footsteps padding down the hallway after her.

 

After the first time Lauren had left while Camila was sleeping to go to work, Camila had started to wake immediately when Lauren moved from the bed. Lauren was sure she should have felt guilty, but mostly she wanted to have Camila around all the time.

 

“Do you know any of the strays besides Elvis?” Lauren asked as she was pouring the cat food into bowls. Camila gravitated naturally to Lauren’s side, their arms pressed warmly together.

 

“Strays?” Camila repeated, picking a piece of cat kibble out of a bowl and considering it thoughtfully. Her voice sounded odd and when Lauren turned towards her, Camila looked odd, too.

 

Not odd in the way Camila decorated her face with glossy and powdered colors, or the way she wore huge bows on her head. Camila looked odd because she looked naked, vulnerable. Her skin looked pale and when she looked up to meet Lauren’s gaze, Camila’s eyes were puffy and red. Before Lauren could ask the question, Camila cut her off with a violent sneeze.

 

Lauren froze and Camila tried to look down at her nose disapprovingly, cross-eyed.

 

“You okay?” Lauren asked, glancing around the kitchen. “Want a tissue?”

 

Camila snuffled and wiped her nose on the cuff of the sweatshirt she was wearing. Which happened to be Lauren’s.

 

“Guess not,” Lauren observed. When Camila laughed, the sound was hoarse, and Lauren frowned, stroking her fingertips against Camila’s neck.

 

“You’re hot,” Lauren said, startled.

 

“Yes,” Camila agreed.

 

“No, you’re—hot. Your skin. Is warm. Hot.” Lauren moved her touch fluidly to Camila’s cheek, Camila’s skin silky beneath her fingertips. Her skin was warm, but then, Camila was living, her skin should have been warm, right?

 

“Yes,” Camila agreed again, like it was not cause for concern.

 

“Here, come here.” Lauren moved closer, pressing herself into Camila’s space. Whether Camila knew what Lauren was doing or not, Camila was comfortable and happy to have Lauren close to her.

 

Lauren pressed their foreheads together. She could feel Camila’s breath against her lips. It was close, hot. Lauren stood, bare skin pressed to Camila’s, and Camila met her eyes curiously. “I saw this on TV,” Lauren said dumbly. “But I don’t know if I’m doing it right.”

 

“I like it,” Camila said, nudging the tip of Lauren’s nose with hers.

 

“I must be doing it right, then,” Lauren teased, nudging Camila back.

 

Camila’s forehead felt hot against hers and when Lauren looked into her eyes they were hazy, not sharp and lively like Camila should have been.

 

“Come on,” Lauren said, pulling away and trying to ignore Camila’s whine at the loss of contact. “Sick people belong in bed.”

 

Camila allowed herself to be guided back to the bed – their bed – and Lauren flitted nervously around her, poking at their pillow until it looked suitably comfortable and tucking the blankets tightly around Camila’s shoulders in case she got cold.

 

Camila watched her through fuzzy eyes, her cheeks and nose red against pale skin. Sick, just like any other person might have been.

 

Human after all.

 

Lauren had never thought of Camila as inhuman, invincible. Lauren worried for Camila more than she worried for herself.

 

Still, for all of Camila’s magical, enthusiastic passion, it was jarring to have her bundled up in their bed, feverish and sniffing, her body probably aching and her nose obviously annoying her the way Camila was scrunching and twitching it periodically.

 

Lauren didn’t like it.

 

“Can I… do you need anything else?” she asked, at a loss.

 

“I need you,” Camila said.

 

Lauren shifted, scratching the back of her neck nervously.

 

“Me,” she repeated, unsure somehow. There wasn’t anyone else in the room. There wasn’t anyone else for Camila, Lauren realized.

 

Camila just had Lauren.

 

Camila nodded against the pillow, watching with eyes both innocent and knowing.

 

“All right,” Lauren said, and crawled onto the bed beside Camila.

 

Camila deserved to get what she wanted, Lauren told herself. She was sick, after all. What kind of friend would Lauren be if she didn’t cater to Camila when she was sick?

 

She pressed close to Camila’s side, lying on top of the covers. Camila watched her with translucent eyes, soft and wondering.

 

“Anything else?” Lauren asked, her voice almost a whisper with Camila so close. A teasing smile graced her lips, but Lauren would have done anything.

 

Camila lifted her head slightly, tilted her chin in a way that Lauren thought was an obvious request for a kiss.

 

 _Not that_ , Lauren could have said. She could have pointed out to Camila that a kiss would not cure a cold or make Camila feel better. But then, Camila was Camila. Lauren thought maybe affection really could have cured any of Camila’s upsets.

 

So Lauren kissed her.

 

She cupped Camila’s cheek in her hand and pressed her lips softly to Camila’s. Lauren didn’t think of the things she shouldn’t do, the things that weren’t right. She only thought of Camila. Camila in her life and Camila in her arms.

 

It was only when Camila made a soft whining noise and nibbled at Lauren’s lower lip curiously that Lauren jerked back, wide eyed.

 

“I didn’t…” Lauren shook her head once, hoping she could rid herself of her own stupidity. “I didn’t mean to do that. I shouldn’t…”

 

Camila’s eyes flicked from Lauren’s lips to meeting her gaze. Camila smiled for her, and somehow, even when Lauren’s heart was beating to the rhythm of,  _holy shit, holy shit, holy shit_ , she felt calmed by Camila’s lazy acceptance.

 

“You’re nice,” Camila complimented, even though Lauren was anything but, and then Camila was sinking down and nuzzling at Lauren’s shoulder until Lauren made room for her, curling her arm around Camila. “Going to sleep now,” Camila murmured, resting her head on Lauren’s chest, like Lauren was a cushy pillow and Camila a sleepy kitten.

 

“But…” Lauren said, the protest dying on her lips as Camila’s breathing evened out into sleep almost immediately.

 

“Shit,” Lauren cursed after a long moment of just lying there, staring up at the ceiling with Camila’s head resting comfortably on her chest.

 

Her mind swirled dizzily, thoughts of Camila and what Camila wanted, what Lauren wanted, what neither of them probably understood. And Lauren needed to be the responsible one, Lauren couldn’t take advantage of her.

 

Lauren had never felt a responsibility to anyone before Camila. She’d done what she’d liked and nothing had really mattered, no one else was affected.

 

And then, Camila.

 

“I didn’t ask for you,” Lauren said, stroking Camila’s soft hair. Camila huffed a soft breath in her sleep, a complaint maybe, and her fingers twitched against Lauren’s collarbone.

 

Lauren covered Camila’s hand with hers.

——-

Camila had plans for everything.

 

Lauren let Camila in out of the rain and suddenly they were living together.

 

Lauren let Camila share her bed once and a week later Camila had her cold feet pressed against Lauren’s shin and he was playing with Lauren’s hair as they drifted off together in a bed that was both of theirs.

 

Lauren told Camila her name and suddenly she was  _Lolo_ , and then,  _my Lolo_.

 

The kiss wasn’t any different. Once Lauren had given in – a mistake even if it didn’t feel like one – there was no turning back, and in Camila’s mind everything was going exactly the way it should have been. Lauren could see it so clearly, the way Camila’s mind was working sharply, dangerously behind innocent brown eyes.

 

“My heart will be lonely,” Camila protested when Lauren was getting ready for work the next morning. Camila had her fingers wrapped possessively around Lauren’s wrist, entirely displeased to be left alone.

 

“Your heart only has to wait a few hours,” Lauren reassured her, tying the barista apron around her neck. Camila sighed dramatically and Lauren gave her an indulgent smile. “Hey, you’re going to remember this time, right? I’m not leaving you, I’ll be back before it’s dark.”

 

Camila frowned worriedly and trailed behind as Lauren made her way towards the front door. “If you aren’t back it will be dark and I won’t be able to see the sky…”

 

“I will be,” Lauren repeated, turning towards Camila at the door. Camila was watching her with wide, worried eyes. The panic Lauren could see growing in them, barely suppressed, made Lauren’s stomach ache. She released the doorknob and patted Camila’s shoulder in what she hoped was a comforting but acceptably distant and I’m-not-thinking-about-your-lips-on-mine manner. “I’m coming back. I promise.”

 

Camila’s expression brightened immediately. “You promise,” she repeated in a whisper, nodding and giving Lauren a look that was painfully trusting. “Yes.”

 

When Lauren moved to step out the door, though, Camila hooked her fingers around her wrist again. “A kiss for me?” Camila asked with a smile that might have been coy if Lauren didn’t know better.

 

Lauren’s mind went quickly blank. She stared, nervous, and Camila gazed back, waiting patiently.

 

Lauren had sort of hoped Camila would forget the kiss from the day before. Camila forgot other things. She forgot how many trees they’d planted and she forgot the names of the portraits and she even forgot where she was sometimes, where they lived. It hadn’t been that unrealistic of a hope that Camila would forget the kiss, Lauren thought. Not unrealistic, but maybe overly optimistic.

 

It would have been easier.

 

“Camz,” Lauren said carefully. “When I, um…”

 

“Kissed me,” Camila provided helpfully.

 

Lauren sighed, hope lost. “Yeah, thanks, when I did that, it wasn’t something I should have done. Friends don’t do that.”

 

“You did, though,” Camila pointed out. “So they must.”

 

Lauren couldn’t help but feel fond of Camila, stubborn as she was, clever and sweet and determined and demanding.

 

“I did,” Lauren agreed reluctantly. “But it wasn’t right for me to do that, okay? I won’t do it again.”

 

“No,” Camila said, her eyes mysterious and her tone playful. She took a step back and released Lauren’s wrist.

 

Lauren was half way to Cocoa’s when she realized Camila had taken her words as a challenge.

——-

It was only when Lauren was cautious of Camila growing closer, that she realized how attached Camila already was. How attached they both were.

 

Camila stuck to Lauren’s side, dropped herself joyfully against Lauren’s side, came to Lauren when her head ached or her cat was lost. She played with Lauren’s hair and curled her fingers around the fabric of Lauren’s clothing possessively.

 

After Lauren kissed her, Camila became impossibly closer, more attached, more expectant.

 

Camila began, in some strange Camila way, attempting to seduce Lauren.

 

She made clear attempts to kiss Lauren goodbye and hello when Lauren left for work. She tried to make Lauren meals – perhaps Camila had heard that the way to a person’s heart was through their stomach – and when that failed Camila offered Lauren bites of her candy bars and generous shares of pizza.

 

She brought Lauren all the tiny, shiny trinkets she found, gifts that meant so much to Camila that Lauren couldn’t stop herself from treasuring them as well.

 

Lauren might have been seduced if Camila hadn’t gone about the whole thing with a gleeful childishness and lack of concern that punctuated so many of the things Camila did.

 

When nothing else appeared to be working, Camila resorted to dirty tactics, giving Lauren her biggest, saddest eyes and insisting on cuddling as close as humanly possible.

 

Lauren did her best to pull away, to stop making Camila think there would be something between them that there couldn’t be, could never be.

 

Camila didn’t seem to be getting the message.

 

“I’m cold,” Camila complained into the back of Lauren’s neck as they lay together, Camila’s breath brushing Lauren’s skin and making her shiver. “Make me warm, Lolo. I’m cold.”

 

Lauren’s hand clenched but she didn’t turn over to pull Camila close to her, to rub her hands down Camila’s arms until Camila was purring and happy under the contact.

 

Camila squirmed closer, trying unsuccessfully to burrow herself into Lauren’s back.

 

Lauren closed her eyes.

——-

Lauren pulled away and Camila pressed herself closer, stubborn and undeterred.

 

Where Camila had always clung to her, now Camila moved toward her was a fluid energy, a heat that was not misplaced but should have been.

 

Camila’s hands drifted to places they shouldn’t have, her nails raking down Lauren’s neck, her fingers disappearing under the fabric of Lauren’s t-shirts. Lauren pulled away each time, but it didn’t stop Camila from coming right back to her, more determined than the last.

 

Lauren was sitting on the couch when Camila came into the room, yawned, stretched with a catlike grace, and promptly straddled Lauren’s lap.

 

She grabbed Camila by the waist immediately and wasn’t sure if she wanted to push Camila off or draw her closer. She did nothing, holding Camila there and staring at her, waiting.

 

“You need me,” Camila said. “Don’t you want me?”

 

“I want you,” Lauren said, and then wanted to punch herself for it. “I want you to get off of me, I mean. That’s what I meant. Get off, Camz.”

 

Camila raised a superior eyebrow, tilting her head and smiling flirtatiously. When Lauren failed to respond, Camila ghosted her fingers over Lauren’s collarbone, licking her lip absently. She curled her other hand possessively around Lauren’s hip, her thumb curious against Lauren’s waistband.

 

Lauren brushed Camila’s hands away belatedly.

 

“I don’t think you know what you’re doing.”

 

“I do know what I’m doing,” Camila insisted, and Lauren would have liked to believe her, maybe. “Do you?”

 

Lauren shook her head helplessly. “No.”

 

Camila leaned forward to kiss her and Lauren turned away.

——-

Camila’s song on Lauren’s guitar built to an uncomfortable tension, loud and passionate and wild. Out of control and nothing to hold on to, and Lauren could fall into it so easily if she let herself. She could get sucked down into a turbulent sea of music, they both could.

 

They could drown.

 

Lauren’s fingers froze and the music stopped abruptly.

——-

For all Camila appeared unaffected by Lauren’s rejection. Lauren knew she wasn’t.

 

Camila followed Lauren more closely around the house and she held onto Lauren’s jacket sleeve like it was the only thing stopping Lauren from falling off the edge of her world.

 

Camila was too attached. They were too attached to each other.

 

It was one thing to know that. It was another to be confronted with it the way Camila made everything seem so simple and clear.

 

They were watching  _The Notebook_. Lauren was willing to admit she’d spent half the time watching the movie and half staring at Camila, but only because it was  _The Notebook_ , and she would always claimed she preferred horror films.

 

But Camila was spellbound and captivated by the screen, repeating lines quietly to herself, lips moving with little sound. She flinched when the characters yelled and her lip wobbled dangerously when they found love.

 

“You really like this movie,” Lauren observed fondly, watching Camila’s eyes focused so intently on the television screen.

 

It struck Lauren, somehow, that the woman in the movie, ill with dementia and unable to remember much of anything, was a bit like Camila. And her husband, sticking by her side, still so in love…

 

“Why do you like it?” Lauren asked carefully.

 

“That’s us,” Camila said, confirming Lauren’s fears and pointing to the kissing couple on the television.

 

“That’s a married couple,” Lauren protested.

 

Camila nodded happily and didn’t seem to recognize it as a protest at all. “They’re soul mates,” Camila told her, turning from the screen and looking just as spellbound by Lauren as she had been by the movie. “Like us.”

 

Lauren shook her head helplessly. “We’re not like that. We’re not going to be… You know that, right?”

 

“I’m waiting,” Camila told her easily. “Your soul loves mine. I’m just waiting for you.”

 

 _Oh_ , Lauren thought.

 

Lauren had known it. Of course she had. She knew what Camila wanted, what Camila thought she wanted.

 

She’d just hoped that Camila would give up, so Lauren wouldn’t have to say no to her.

 

She should have known Camila never gave up on anything.

 

“I know you are, I know you’re waiting,” Lauren said slowly. “But Camila… a year from now, you’ll still be waiting for Monday to come. You’ll still be waiting for the guitar pick tree to grow. You’ll still be waiting for me.”

 

Camila watched her with calmly tolerant eyes that said Camila wouldn’t mind waiting a year. Camila would wait forever.

 

Lauren shook her head, forcing the words off her lips. “It won’t happen. You’ll still be waiting, but it won’t happen, no matter how much you wait.”

 

“I think I’ll wait anyway,” Camila decided thoughtfully.

 

“No.” Lauren straightened up, steeling herself against Camila’s upset. “You won’t, you shouldn’t. There’s nothing to wait for.”

 

“For you.”

 

“No,” Lauren said, final.

 

Camila frowned and didn’t seem to realize it was final at all. “Why not?”

 

Lauren could have said a lot of things to that. A lot of reasons, all falling over themselves in her head to form a steel web of sharp edges and  _don_ _’_ _t touch that_.

 

She didn’t.

 

She didn’t say,  _I don_ _’_ _t think you think about the things you do before you do them._

 

She didn’t say,  _I don_ _’_ _t think you can take care of yourself._

 

She didn’t say,  _I want to take care of you._

 

She didn’t say,  _How can I take care of you if I_ _’_ _m taking advantage of you?_

 

She only said, “The way you are, Camila. I just can’t.”

 

Lauren didn’t think Camila would take it to heart. Camila let everything roll off her so easily, Lauren never thought of upsetting her, only protecting her.

 

“How am I?” Camila asked, frowning curiously.

 

“You dance with spatulas and you talk in codes.”  _I want to dance with you. I think I_ _’_ _m learning your language._  “I just can’t be with you, be what you want.”

 

“You are with me, though,” Camila disagreed, just like she had been for days, forever.

 

It couldn’t go on, Camila sneaking closer and Lauren pushing her away. It couldn’t go on because Lauren could only push Camila away so many times. Eventually, eventually she thought she’d just give in, to see Camila smile or to have Camila in her arms or to keep Camila forever and never be alone again, never be without her again.

 

So Camila had to stop asking, otherwise, otherwise.

 

Lauren had heard that you hurt the ones you loved the most. She wondered if this would mean she loved Camila, then.

 

“I’m never going to be that for you, Camila,” Lauren repeated. She took a breath, wished she didn’t have to continue, and did anyway. “I promise.”

 

“…You promise?” Camila repeated. She looked crushed, shocked. Like Lauren had broken a willingly given, fragile trust. Lauren couldn’t stand it. She didn’t look away.

 

“I promise.” Lauren repeated, staring into Camila’s eyes starting to shine with tears. Lauren thought it was maybe the hardest thing she’d ever had to do, harder than lowering the casket into the ground at her grandmother’s funeral.

 

Camila didn’t cry. Lauren didn’t know what she’d have done if Camila cried. Maybe she’d have taken it all back.

 

Camila simply turned and walked out of the room silently, the same way she had before she’d moved in with Lauren, when Camila had visited and left without a word and Lauren had never known if she was coming back, could only hope.

 

Lauren thought, somehow, that was the end of it. The end of Camila’s soul mate and the end of Lolo and the end of Camila’s affectionate stares and searching, wanting hands.

 

It was what she’d wanted.

 

The victory felt a lot like a loss.


	19. In The Quiet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry for this

When Lauren was six years old, she thought she’d spend her life making music.

 

She still thought that. The music just had to wait for her to make someone’s cup of coffee.

 

When Lauren was nine she thought she’d spend her life with her neighbor Keaton, because he was obsessed with her and told her they were getting married and threatened to tell her mom she had beat him up if she didn’t agree. Lauren didn’t want to be grounded the rest of her life for beating her neighbor up. She agreed.

 

When Lauren hit puberty she decided to spend her life playing softball, since she was good at it.

 

When she was sixteen, her grandmother helped her buy a guitar, and Lauren decided that she’d spend the rest of her life holding the sleek guitar.

 

Then, her grandmother died and Lauren put the guitar away and decided she’d do nothing, be nothing, have no one. It wasn’t worth it.

 

So Lauren was nothing for a year.

 

Then Camila found her, changed everything, radiant and sparkling and Lauren’s heart beating, blood pumping like it never had before. And Lauren allowed herself to think secretly, quietly, that she might spend her life with Camila.

 

Now she thought she might spend her life with a shadow of Camila.

 

Camila was quiet after Lauren pushed her away, and somehow Lauren thought it might be good. Camila might have accepted it, Camila might be thinking it over, and Camila might move on.

 

Move on, Lauren thought, but she’d keep being Camila, they’d keep being Camila and Lauren. Lauren didn’t want to lose Camila. Lauren couldn’t lose Camila, she thought with a shiver.

 

It didn’t quite go that way. She should have known; nothing with Camila ever went how Lauren thought it would.

 

It started with something shiny in Lauren’s trashcan and it ended that way too. When Lauren looked into the trash in her kitchen the day after pushing Camila away, staring down into its undisturbed contents, it caught her eye.

 

It glittered, something that should not have been there with Camila in the house, flickered at Lauren from beneath garbage. She reached a hand in for it like Camila would have but was not, and pulled the cold metal out.

 

It was her spatula. Twisted, wrong, discarded.

 

Lauren’s hand shook and she clenched it harder around the bent handle.

 

“I’m sorry,” she told the twisted metal – Ariana, Lauren remembered – her voice wavering in an empty space of a cold room.

 

The spatula did not respond.

——-

Lauren should have never told Camila it was the way she talked, the way she danced, the way she was. Lauren should have said she just wasn’t interested in Camila; she should have lied.

 

The candy wrapper centerpiece on the kitchen table disappeared. Camila’s trunk of treasures was pushed under the bed, hidden like a secret no one could know. Lauren’s missing sweatshirts and beanies were returned to her closet, organized incorrectly, but Lauren could tell Camila had tried to place them where they had once belonged.

 

The portraits lost their names. The toaster was just a toaster. Camila didn’t dance in the kitchen anymore.

 

Days passed. Hours, minutes, moments. Lauren counted them.

 

What else could she do?

 

Lauren replaced all the light bulbs in the house. She stacked the cans in the cupboards by expiration date. She tried unsuccessfully to have a conversation with Mrs. Smith. She bought flower seeds and left them in the trash for Camila to find, but Camila never did.

 

She tried to paint her nails purple to make Camila smile, but only ended up with stained, glossy hands.

 

And Camila did not speak.

 

Nothing could get her to talk. Lauren had been trying. She asked questions she knew Camila wanted to answer, tried to start conversations she knew Camila would be interested in. She asked about the stars and the strays and the graves. She talked about music and the guitar. Sometimes Camila would open her mouth, ready to tell Lauren about the waxing and waning of the moon or what the squirrels thought of Lauren’s new beanie – but the words never quite made it out. She’d remember herself and snap her lips together again, eyes dull.

 

She wouldn’t even respond with yes or no in the odd way she sometimes did. Camila had resorted to simple, controlled nodding and shaking of her head.

 

Camila appeared to be living by the motto, ‘If you can’t say anything Lauren wants to hear, don’t say anything at all.’

 

It wasn’t true. Lauren would have done anything – almost anything – to get Camila to go back to being herself. Camila was trying to change for her and it made Lauren sick to think about it.

 

So Camila was quiet, a ghost, haunting. She curled up like a dying thing on the ground in the family room – still Camila’s favorite room – and did not watch the ceiling, did not sing to the stars, did not, did nothing.

 

Lauren sat beside her, stroking Camila’s skin with her fingertips, hunching over her side and whispering into Camila’s ear like the silence was glass, fragile.

 

It was closer than she should have been, but Lauren couldn’t remember why.

 

“Why do you love wearing bows?” she asked against silky skin. Her lip traced against Camila’s neck. Camila’s hair obscured Lauren’s eyes. “Why do you sing like a rock star? Why are you afraid of my telephone? Why aren’t you afraid of anything else? Why does it matter if I promise? Why am I your soul mate, Camila?”

 

Camila breathed, and Lauren thought maybe her breath was a little shorter at the last one – soul mate – but she didn’t look up, and she didn’t answer. Lauren hummed and stroked fingers through long brown hair.

 

Camila looked tired and disheveled. More so than she had when she’d lived in a building without electricity, without a fridge. She seemed suddenly tiny, her arm fragile in Lauren’s grip, like Lauren could snap it, break it, break her.

 

Realistically Lauren knew it was impossible, in two short days, for Camila to be thinner, to be any more fragile than she had been before.

 

But then, Camila had never fit very well into Lauren’s reality. She bent it, shaped it, danced outside of its lines. She planted a guitar tree and befriended the stars.

 

She  _had_  done those things.

 

Lauren rested her cheek on the coarse carpet, trying to meet Camila’s eyes but staring at fragile, thin eyelids instead. “Why does my soul love yours?”

——-

The house was quiet, Camila’s footsteps even silent like she was floating, insubstantial.

 

Lauren tried to fill up the space with her own voice. It didn’t sound like Camila’s; it didn’t sound right. Lauren didn’t know what the scraggly tree in the front yard had to say about the weed growing by the garage. She didn’t know what the toaster thought about breakfast cereal.

 

She tried anyway. One of them had to. Lauren couldn’t allow the silence to fall over the house like it once had, suffocating and pressing down punishingly on Lauren’s chest. She couldn’t let Camila be a part of that.

 

She tried dancing with the spatula in the kitchen, twirling in lopsided circles. Camila only watched out of the corner of her eye. When Lauren turned to look at her, Camila slipped unobtrusively out of the room.

 

“You don’t think I can dance?” Lauren asked, trailing after her. Camila curled up in the corner and Lauren settled on the floor beside her. Camila blinked slowly at her and Lauren continued, encouraged. “Does Ariana think I can? She won’t talk to me either.”

 

Predictably, Camila said nothing.

 

It was weird, silence from Camila’s lips. Lauren never wanted to change Camila. She never wanted to make Camila like everyone else. She never wanted Camila to feel like it wasn’t okay to be Camila anymore.

 

Lauren liked Camila.

 

Sighing, Lauren reached a slow hand out to stroke fingers through Camila’s tangled hair, a touch that was still okay. Camila still turned faintly into the contact, refusing to look at Lauren like maybe she wouldn’t notice if neither of them acknowledged it.

 

“I saw an ant in the kitchen today,” Lauren tried. “I think he was hungry.”

 

This, if nothing else, got Camila’s attention. She straightened from her despondent slump, eyes meeting Lauren’s for the first time in days. Her eyes looked the same at least, and Lauren was sure she could see Camila’s passion, peculiar interest and magic behind them.

 

Camila raised an eyebrow slightly in a ghost of a familiar motion.

 

“I fed him,” Lauren reassured, as she was strangely sure that was what Camila wanted to know. Lauren had given the ant an entire English muffin. She wasn’t entirely sure she hadn’t crushed the tiny bug under the weight of the thing.

 

Lauren smiled hesitantly and Camila’s interest faded immediately like she was embarrassed by it. She looked away.

 

Lauren sighed and slumped. The thump of her head against the wall echoed in the silence.

——-

Lauren’s ears started to ring. She thought maybe she was going crazy. Maybe she’d always been crazy and Camila had just been holding it off.

 

Lauren couldn’t get Camila to sing, couldn’t even get her to hum along as Lauren sang as loudly as she could. It just wasn’t the same without Camila’s voice singing along with her…

 

She couldn’t bring herself to play the guitar knowing Camila wouldn’t sing along.

 

By the end of the week Lauren had resorted to begging.

 

“Say anything.” Lauren had Camila’s hand clutched in hers and she tugged on it pleadingly. “Say anything – how do I know you haven’t gone mute and I have to take you to a doctor? Or deaf!” Lauren flailed, Camila’s arm jerking as Lauren refused to let go. “Deaf and mute! How will we be rock stars together if you can’t speak or hear?”

 

How would Lauren be a rock star at all if she didn’t have Camila?

 

Lauren breathed erratically, eyes wide, and Camila squeezed her hand hesitantly, fingers curling into Lauren’s.

 

Her fluttering stomach calmed faintly at the acknowledgment. Not deaf, then. Lauren’s breathing slowed and she comforted herself with the knowledge that Camila could not be deaf – Camila was fine. Camila had to be fine.

 

Finally, finally, Camila’s attention was focused on Lauren, and when Lauren met her eyes, Camila didn’t look away.

 

“Camila,” Lauren tried. “Please say something. Anything, really. I didn’t mean you shouldn’t.” Camila’s attention flickered and Lauren tugged on her arm too hard. “Don’t… Tell me about—tell me how Ben is. Have you been to the graveyard?”

 

Lauren would have taken any response, really, as long as it was a response. The mention of her gravestone friend captured Camila’s attention and Lauren breathed with relief.

 

“Ben is dead,” Camila responded. “Everyone is gone.”

 

As the first thing Camila had said all week it wasn’t exactly what Lauren had been hoping for.

 

Lauren had never seen Camila so upset. Somehow Lauren didn’t think an old, purple sweatshirt from the back of her closet would comfort Camila this time. She wasn’t so sure anything would – was it possible for someone to perish of pure unhappiness? Just, disappear like she’d never been there at all?

 

Lauren wasn’t so sure Camila couldn’t do it.

 

The next day was Monday. Lauren knew because Camila told her.

 

When she came into the kitchen, Camila had the calendar, ripped off the wall, clutched in her fingers.

 

Camila had never looked at it before – dates and time were something Camila twisted to her own desires. Of all the things in the house that Camila loved and befriended, the calendar only served to annoy her.

 

“It’s Monday,” Camila said. She looked up, her lips pressed thin and a confused, displeased wrinkle between her eyebrows. “Michael said he would come on Monday.”

 

Lauren swallowed nervously, her heart beating against her ribcage. She didn’t know what it meant. She didn’t think it was good.

 

“I know,” Lauren said cautiously, stepping forward. She put a hand on the calendar but Camila didn’t release it and Lauren didn’t pull it away. She wanted to.

 

Camila stroked the date with her thumb. “Where is Michael?”

 

Lauren’s heart twisted painfully. She wished she had the answer for Camila. She wished Camila would forget the whole thing.

 

“I don’t know.”

——-

Lauren hated change.

 

Everything seemed to be changing and Lauren was the one who had started it. Lauren was the one who had insisted instead of letting things go ahead the way they were, the way Camila wanted them to. It hadn’t made either of them happy.

 

When Camila talked, it was with a stiff carefulness. The words fit together almost like they should have, except not from Camila’s lips.

 

Camila was trying, with painful deliberateness, to be something that Lauren wanted her to be, someone that Lauren would want.

 

Besides that, Camila was motionless, quiet. She didn’t sing, she didn’t dance.

 

Lauren wondered if it wasn’t right to ask Camila to live with her and then push her away like this. She thought she couldn’t have known Camila would want something Lauren couldn’t give, and at the same time she wondered if she’d known all along.

 

She wondered if Camila would be happier under a shuddering, dangerous roof in a building with a hole in the wall and a nail by the bed.

 

Camila did not speak of leaving. Lauren didn’t either. Lauren was selfish.

 

She still wanted to be close to Camila, to have Camila’s smile and Camila’s voice and Camila’s hand clutched around hers. Even when those things were rare, Lauren waited, Lauren wanted.

 

Camila didn’t crawl into her bed at night anymore.

 

Lauren didn’t know if she was waiting for that or not.

 

Camila followed Lauren silently to her bedroom door but she never stepped over the threshold, the same way Lauren had done with her grandmother’s room.

 

Camila watched her with eyes that might have been pleading as Lauren stepped into the room that was not theirs, away from Camila.

 

“I’m trying,” Camila whispered, her fingers curled painfully against her palms and her voice rough and strange in the silence. “I’m  _trying_.”

 

 _I know you are,_  Lauren thought,  _I wish you would stop._

 

“Good night,” Lauren said instead.

 

Camila didn’t say good morning.


	20. Unusually Ordinary

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

“Camila, I love you,” Lauren declared in a squeaky voice.

 

Camila stared at her hands.

 

Lauren cleared her throat and tried again.

 

“Camila,” she called, brandishing the bent spatula that had once been known as Ariana. She spoke out of the side of her mouth, waving the spatula back and forth like it was speaking. “Camila, I love you! Why won’t you talk to me anymore? It makes me sad.” The spatula drooped in Lauren’s hand, doing a convincing impression of a very depressed kitchen utensil. “Lauren can’t dance. Who will dance with me now?”

 

Not Camila, it seemed. She stayed seated at the table, staring at her hands with dull disinterest.

 

Lauren spun around the kitchen once, leaning over to dip the spatula in a strange imitation of a ballroom dance. Camila didn’t look up and finally Lauren sighed and set Ariana on the table, giving her a consoling pat.

 

After Camila had stopped speaking to her inanimate friends, Lauren had started to feel like she had to. Camila had been so fond of them, her affection contagious, and now they were all being abandoned. Lauren was being abandoned.

 

“You’re not going to talk to any of them?” She asked, not really expecting a response. Lauren knew Camila wouldn’t and she knew why. She just didn’t know how to fix it without taking everything she’d said back.

 

If she took everything back it might make Camila happy again – her heart clenched at the thought – but it would make Camila think they were going to be together, too. Lauren couldn’t do that only to have to take it away again.

 

Lauren couldn’t be with Camila because Camila was… so strange, but she didn’t want Camila to stop being strange, either. Lauren wasn’t sure how that worked exactly, how it was going to work. Not very well, at the moment.

 

“Not even to me, huh?” Lauren kicked lightly at the foot of Camila’s chair imploringly. Camila bit her lip. The only sound piercing the silence was of toast popping up.

 

“Yeah,” Lauren said. “I didn’t think so.”

 

Picking up her burnt toast, Lauren greeted the toaster anyway. It seemed like it would have been strange not to.

——-

The harder Camila tried for normalcy the stranger she seemed. Camila was not made to be average. Maybe she never had been. Lauren couldn’t imagine it. Maybe Camila had spent her whole life creating a world of magic and delight around herself like a storybook.

 

The paintings had names even when Camila wasn’t speaking to them, the walls were more than walls even when Camila wasn’t acknowledging it. Camila couldn’t change those things. Camila couldn’t change herself. She could only try to suppress it, hide under suffocating layers of expectation.

 

Lauren wouldn’t let her.

 

Camila was sitting by the window in a dark room when Lauren plopped down beside her, pressing herself into Camila’s space like it was still their space, like Lauren was still welcome. Camila wasn’t looking out the window but down, a heavy book balanced on her knees. It was an old history textbook – Lauren could easily tell as the title was right side up.

 

“Your book is upside down,” Lauren pointed out, leaning closer. “How can it speak to you like that?”

 

Camila made a frustrated noise, looking a bit like she wanted to throw the book at Lauren. Really, Lauren wouldn’t have minded a book in the face as long as it meant Camila was listening. A reaction, any reaction.

 

Abruptly, Lauren yanked the book from Camila’s fingertips. Camila jerked back, wide-eyed and startled, and Lauren grinned at her.

 

“You be quiet,” she instructed, even though Camila had said and would have said nothing. “I’m going to read this book. I’m an awesome book-reader. It’s one of my many hidden talents. You just listen.”

 

Interest flickered guardedly in Camila’s eyes and Lauren grinned, feeling rewarded. She wasn’t sure how she’d become the one seeking out attention. It had never been that way before. She’d never had anyone to crave attention from before.

 

Lauren shifted faintly closer, settling with her knee brushing Camila’s. She flopped the heavy book open in her lap, staring down at line after line of tiny text. “This book is about… trees.” Lauren declared. “Trees that are… Well, soul mate trees, obviously.”

 

It was the right thing to say. Camila edged closer, her expression bright with poorly disguised interest. “It is?” she asked, and just her voice made Lauren’s heart beat a fraction faster.

 

“Yes, it is,” Lauren assured her, flipping through to another random page. “I’m trying to read here, don’t be so chatty.”

 

Camila huffed, stubborn, and settled closer to Lauren, watching the book curiously. Lauren cleared her throat dramatically.

 

“So, yeah, soul mate trees, and they make music – they’re the most musical trees in the forest, and when the wind blows their leaves rustle together, like rhythms and harmonies…”

 

Camila hummed thoughtfully by Lauren’s ear, the sound shivering and hollow, perhaps mimicking the song she thought a tree would make.

 

It was a start.

——-

“Lauren.”

 

Lauren reached a hand out to rub the back of her neck, stiff from immobility. It was dark outside now and the history book was lying on the floor at her feet where it had been abandoned hours before.

 

When Lauren looked up, Camila was standing in the doorway, shaded in the dark of the hall. She scuffed the floor with her foot, shifting anxiously. “My shoe is lost.”

 

Lauren blinked rapidly against the dark, eyes adjusting. One black sneaker was hanging forlornly from Camila’s fingertips as she rocked back and forth on bare feet.

 

Shoes had been one of the first things Lauren and Camila had gone shopping for together. While Camila had owned three shoes when she’d moved in they had not been pairs of shoes. None of them had matched.

 

Lauren had been horrified.

 

Where Lauren thought it was of the utmost importance to match one’s beanie to one’s footwear, Camila wasn’t even matching her shoes to  _each other_.

 

It had to be rectified immediately. Of course, when they had gone shopping Camila had chosen the most colorful, most practical sneakers available. Most of them were converse.

 

One of which was apparently now missing.

 

“Why do you need your shoes?” Lauren asked worriedly. “You’re not going somewhere? It’s late, it’s dark, you don’t need your shoes now. Stay here, Camila.”

 

Camila shook her head, straightening with a stubbornness that Lauren recognized. Affection welled up immediately in her chest for the determined, demanding creature that had been hiding meekly underneath Camila’s skin lately.

 

“No, no,” Camila insisted. “My shoe is lost. My shoe is missing my other shoe.”

 

“Your shoes miss each other,” Lauren repeated, feeling stupidly hopeful.

 

“My shoe lost its other.” Camila’s voice wavered. “Only one shoe – there were two and now there’s only one. Lolo…”

 

Lauren scrambled to her feet, moving clumsily across the room to Camila’s side. It was the most Camila-like thing Camila had said in too long, odd and childlike, and somehow in the strange alternate reality that was their world, that was a good thing. Camila talking in confusing circles was amazing, perfect.

 

“Okay,” Lauren said, not even having the decency to be embarrassed when her voice came out shaky. She covered Camila’s hand, still clutching the shoe, with her own fingers. Camila’s hand twitched, cold under Lauren’s, but she didn’t pull away. “Okay, we’ll go look for your shoe’s other half. It’s around, it’s not lost.”

 

Camila tugged along reluctantly, silent and probably sulking as Lauren led her down the hall. “Where’d you see it last?” Lauren asked as she entered the guest room Camila had retreated to when she wasn’t welcome in Lauren’s anymore.

 

The bed was unmade, the blankets rumpled and the pillow slightly indented where Camila’s head would have rested. Lauren swallowed thickly, glancing nervously away. There was no reason to worry about Camila sleeping by herself, alone because Lauren wasn’t there. No reason.

 

Camila whined quietly, tugging at her hand, and Lauren released Camila’s fingers abruptly, realizing how tight her hold was. “Sorry. The shoe, um…”

 

“It’s lost,” Camila whimpered.

 

“Nah, it’s just, um…” Lauren wasn’t sure, actually. Camila had a tendency to place things in very odd spaces where she seemed to think they’d be much happier than their original location. Maybe they were happier – none of her beanies expressed their wishes to Lauren like they apparently did to Camila.

 

‘He wanted to travel,’ Camila had informed Lauren one day when she’d opened the freezer to find her panda beanie. ‘To Antarctica, the end of the earth…’

 

Camila had wandered off dreamily, a salt shaker in her hand that Lauren would never see again after that, and Lauren was left in the kitchen, staring into the freezer at her beanie sitting innocently on top of a frozen dinner.

 

She’d shrugged and closed the freezer door. Maybe the beanie did belong in the freezer. Lauren wouldn’t know. Camila should have.

 

The shoe wasn’t anywhere Lauren looked. Camila was radiating waves of unhappiness at her shoulder and she couldn’t think – couldn’t think of anything.

 

“I don’t know where it is,” Lauren said uselessly, closing the closet door.

 

Camila made a sad, choking noise.

 

“It’s not that bad,” Lauren tried to soothe. Camila looked positively heartbroken and Lauren wondered if a hug would be unwelcome. Camila usually knew what she wanted and made Lauren immediately aware of it. She wasn’t now – perhaps Camila thought Lauren wouldn’t give her what she wanted – and Lauren wasn’t sure what she was supposed to be doing.

 

With a sigh, Camila turned and threw herself despondently onto the bed.

 

“It’s not that bad,” Lauren repeated, leaning against the bed frame. Camila’s hair spread in a brown halo around her head and Lauren reached for it but dropped her hand on the comforter instead. “Your shoes will be okay. They’ll find each other, right?”

 

“No,” Camila said sadly. Her arm was draped over her eyes, adopting the position of one in great misery. Lauren would have been worried if Camila wasn’t babbling on about footwear. “No shoes anymore,” Camila declared. “All the shoes are gone.”

 

“There are still shoes,” Lauren promised, hesitantly amused by Camila’s dramatic shoe apocalypse premonitions. “Whole closets of them. You can even have mine, if you want.”

 

Camila sighed unhappily. Lauren’s shoes would not do, it seemed.

 

Camila shifted on the bed, stretching her arms above her head, fingers grasping the soft fabric of a pillow. Camila’s nails were still glossy purple. Her wrists were still bony and her elbows sharp and painful when they jabbed you in the ribs – Lauren knew.

 

Lauren didn’t mind being jabbed in the ribs. It was nice, she thought. Lauren liked being jabbed in the ribs. It was a pleasant kind of pain, really. She missed it.

 

She missed Camila.

 

The bed creaked as Lauren crawled onto it.

 

She edged up close to Camila, lying on her back. Their arms didn’t quite brush but Lauren thought she could feel the heat of Camila’s skin. Camila was watching her curiously, her cheek resting against the soft comforter.

 

“Still get cold?” Lauren asked, for lack of anything better to say.

 

Camila rolled over and buried her face in the blanket.

 

“Are you not talking to me again?” One step forward and two steps back – she didn’t seem to be getting anywhere with Camila, and if she was it wasn’t fast enough. Lauren wanted Camila to smile with a light that no one else could again, sing like no one else could, make Lauren feel like no one else could.

 

Camila said nothing. She lay so still, so silent, like she could have been dead. Lauren couldn’t even hear her breathing.

 

Could someone suffocate in a matter of seconds? If they couldn’t, could Camila do it, simply because she was Camila?

 

Lauren’s heart beat twice as fast at the mere, irrational thought that Camila might not breathe. Now or someday – Lauren couldn’t stand it.

 

“Don’t do that,” she said gruffly, shoving Camila in the shoulder to rouse her. Camila was warm and alive and Lauren held on as Camila rolled back over, frowning at the ceiling.

 

“The sky is a wall,” Camila said. She laughed and it was a strange sound, one Lauren had never heard before. It sounded broken. Lauren felt broken.

 

“No,” Lauren said desperately. “No. No, it’s not. The wall is the sky. You told me so. The ceiling – look.” Lauren grabbed Camila’s chin, tilting her head back gently so Camila was staring up at the stars, two stars painted on the ceiling about her bed.

 

“See?” Lauren curled her other arm out to cradle Camila’s head. “See? The ceiling is the sky. You’re wrong. I can see the stars. Can’t you?”

 

Camila was so close now, her breathing was audible. It was comforting and Lauren’s body went hot and tired against her.

 

“Oh,” said Camila. “The stars are so pretty from here…”

 

Lauren huffed a harsh breath, relief overwhelming. Camila hadn’t talked about the stars at all since Lauren had pushed her away. It was a strange thing to miss, maybe. Lauren missed it anyway.

 

“Yeah,” Lauren breathed. “Yeah, yeah, the stars and the sky are okay, Camz. The shoes will be okay, and the trees and me and you, we’ll be okay. Everything will be okay.”

 

Lauren didn’t know if it would be okay, but she wanted Camila to feel like it would. Maybe if Camila thought it would be okay, everything really would be? Camila had turned her head and was snuffling into Lauren’s neck and Lauren whispered fierce promises she didn’t know she could keep but wanted to.

 

It was better than a promise she didn’t want to keep, anyway.

 

To Lauren’s great relief no tears fell and soon Camila’s snuffling quieted to calm, gentle breaths against Lauren’s skin.

 

“I didn’t want this,” Lauren whispered to her. She didn’t think before she spoke and maybe that was better. “I didn’t want to change you.”

 

“You do. You said.” Camila looked up, her lower lip trapped between her teeth and her eyes searching desperately for something—something.

 

“I was wrong,” Lauren admitted willingly, the realization a concrete, solid thing now that the words escaped her lips. “Being this isn’t better. I don’t want you to change. Don’t change.”

 

Lauren’s skin tingled against Camila’s breath and Camila stroked a finger down her stomach, the fabric of Lauren’s sweatshirt between them.

 

“You’re good how you are,” Lauren said, shifting towards Camila’s hand. “You’re great how you are; I like you how you are.”

 

“But not enough,” Camila mourned, her hand stopping short, pulling away.

 

Lauren grabbed her wrist before she could. “More than anything else,” she protested. “More than my house and more than my guitar and more than… more than me. I like you more than I like myself. That has to be enough. Can’t that be enough?”

 

Camila blinked and looked away, tucking hair behind her ear.

 

“Can’t it just be like it was before,” Lauren begged. “Wasn’t that good? I thought it was really good. Better than anything.”

 

“But  _Lauren_ ,” Camila protested. It was a common complaint from Camila’s lips and Lauren knew it wouldn’t be followed up by anything more.

 

“Please?” she asked, grasping for threads, grasping for Camila’s hand resting close to hers. “I like the way you sing and speak and dance and breathe—“

 

Suddenly Camila’s palm covered Lauren’s lips. Lauren went silent and Camila’s eyes met hers, brighter than they had been.

 

“Don’t be so chatty,” Camila repeated back to her, bumping her hand against Lauren’s lips once before resting her palm on Lauren’s chest, over her heart.

 

Lauren snorted softly, stroking Camila’s wrist with her thumb. She stopped when Camila grabbed her hand, tugging insistently to make sure she had Lauren’s full attention – like she ever hadn’t.

 

“You’re enough,” Camila told her when Lauren met her eyes. “Yes.”

 

“Yes,” Lauren repeated stupidly. “Yes?”

 

“Yes,” Camila agreed, so sure of herself, like she always was, always should be. “But you’ll see.”

 

“I’m still not sure what that means,” Lauren said, grabbing Camila abruptly around the shoulders and pulling her into a tight hug. Camila leaned half on top of her on the bed. “And I know you’re not going to tell me,” she continued, pulling back only enough to raise an eyebrow. Camila smiled innocently back and Lauren’s stomach flipped. She bumped their foreheads together, feeling Camila curl closer into her. “Whatever I’m looking for, I promise I see you, Camz.”

 

Camila nodded against Lauren’s forehead, her eyes an indiscernible shade. When she pulled away it wasn’t bad.

 

It was enough.


	21. Christmas Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

It was enough. Things were good.

 

“Christmas special,” Lauren mumbled, flipping through television stations at impressive speed. “Christmas special, Christmas special, Christmas music,  _How the Grinch Saved Christmas_ …”

 

Lauren paused her channel surfing, eyebrows furrowed disapprovingly. The furry green creature on the screen was giving a small child a hug. “How the Grinch  _Saved_  Christmas? That’s bullshit. The Grinch is supposed to destroy Christmas. That’s why he’s the Grinch!”

 

Camila poked her nose out from her cocoon of fuzzy blankets, giving Lauren a curious look. “Why?” she asked, yawning and cuddling against the side of the couch, poking Lauren’s knee with her socked foot.

 

Now that December had come it was a free for all on Christmas cheer. The only shows that seemed to be on anymore were reruns of past years’ Christmas specials. Lauren’s neighbors had started setting out big, inflatable Santas and glowing reindeer on their lawns.

 

At Cocoa’s, Lauren and Normani had been forced to hang wreaths and lights and flimsy paper cutouts of snowflakes to be more festive. She’d hung the wreaths crooked and tossed all the lights onto one dead houseplant in hopes that it might catch on fire, to indicate what she thought of ‘festive’. Normani never tried to stop her.

 

Even the wildlife looked like it was trying to join in. Granted, trees were generally green, but lately Lauren thought they looked a little  _too_  green.

 

“Why?” Lauren repeated, stroking Camila’s sock covered foot idly. “Because he’s the Grinch, Camz. Don’t you know the Grinch? He stole Christmas!” Lauren frowned. “And then he gave it back, I guess, but I really thought the movie lost its integrity in the second half.”

 

Camila snuffled softly and wiggled further down on the couch, taking her cocoon with her, to give Lauren better access for foot rubbing. Lauren obediently rubbed harder. “Want me to take your sock off?” she asked. When Camila mumbled something agreeable, Lauren removed the silly, fluffy thing, tossing it aside and tickling the sole of Camila’s foot. Camila gave the same funny, high-pitched giggle she always did when Lauren resorted to tickling.

 

“The Grinch is my favorite holiday icon,” Lauren continued, going back to simple stroking before Camila kicked her. “He’s badass, he’s realistic. And now, look.” Lauren pointed to the television in disgust. “They made him into a cuddly green bunny!”

 

“I like cuddly bunnies,” Camila said, poking Lauren in the stomach with her toe.

 

“It’s the principle of the thing,” Lauren insisted. “Didn’t you ever watch the original movie?”

 

Camila hummed, sinking down further into her cocoon, so Lauren could only see her eyes, fluttering shut sleepily and taking longer to open again each time. “Yes,” she mumbled in a tone that Lauren had come to learn actually meant, ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about you crazy, crazy person but I will agree with you anyway because I am also a crazy, crazy person.’

 

“Okay,” Lauren said, voice quieting automatically as Camila’s eyes stayed shut. “We’ll watch it tomorrow.”

 

Camila mumbled a sleepy thing, curling up tighter. Lauren stroked her ankle once before reaching down to find the fuzzy sock and pull it back over Camila’s bare foot.

——-

Camila was impressed with the movie. She talked in rhymes all day, mimicking from the characters and making up her own as she went.

 

“You’re way too excited,” Lauren teased as Camila sang a song about Whos from Whoville. Camila flailed about the room in what she probably considered dancing. Lauren tried and failed to suppress a smile. “Bah, Humbug.”

 

Camila stopped her spinning to edge closer to Lauren, curious. “You’re a sheep?”

 

Lauren raised an eyebrow. Camila was never predicable, that was for sure. “No, I’m not a sheep.”

 

Camila frowned, edging up close enough to poke Lauren in the cheek. “A cow?”

 

“Not that either,” Lauren said, poking Camila back. “I’m a Lauren.”

 

“No,” Camila disagreed, for clearly Lauren was not, in fact, Lauren. “You said ‘bah.’ You must be a sheep, then. It’s okay,” Camila was quick to assure her. “I like sheep.”

 

“Bah, Humbug. Like Scrooge.”

 

“Scrooge the sheep?” Camila tried, looking hopeful.

 

Once Camila had an idea in her head, it was hard to convince her otherwise. Lauren had found it wasn’t usually worth it, either. If Camila was happy, it was impossible not to be happy with her, even when you were being called a farm animal.

 

“Fine, fine,” Lauren said, mustering up as much ill-humor as she could with Camila grinning at her. “I’m Scrooge the sheep. Bah.”

 

Camila pressed her hands together joyfully. “Perfect!”

 

“Yeah, perfect,” Lauren agreed, rolling her eyes good-naturedly. Camila bounced down on the couch next to her and Lauren flipped her hair away from her eyes. “You really haven’t heard of Scrooge?”

 

“Scrooge the—”

 

Lauren shoved at Camila’s shoulder gently. “Yeah, yeah. I get it. What about the real Scrooge? The Christmas one.”

 

Camila gave Lauren a blank look.

 

“No?” Lauren frowned as Camila continued to stare blankly. “You do know Christmas, right? Holiday cheer and all that stuff?”

 

“Doesn’t everyone?” was Camila’s helpful response.

 

“Do you?” Lauren countered.

 

“Yes.” There was a lilt to Camila’s tone that made Lauren wonder.

 

She shook her head, reaching out to poke Camila’s nose. “You’re still insanely frustrating, you know that?”

 

“Yes,” Camila said, smiling innocently. “That’s good.”

 

It kind of was. Lauren watched silently as Camila bounced back up, continuing to flail about in an odd dance and repeat rhymes to herself.

——-

Camil didn’t remember.

 

Camila may have known what Christmas was, but she didn’t remember it. As much as Lauren prodded, Camila couldn’t come up with anything.

 

It was common enough. Camila didn’t always remember things. Lauren was used to it, living together. Just because she told Camila something one day it didn’t mean Camila would know it the next. Just because Lauren came back every time she left the house, it didn’t mean that Camila wouldn’t panic when she found Lauren gone.

 

Camila’s mind didn’t work like everyone else’s. She was different in so many ways. Lauren wondered what it was like.

 

She wondered what it was like to see stars on a ceiling, to see worth in worthless things, to see a friend in every lifeless thing.

 

She wondered what it was like not to remember.

 

Lauren imagined it was like blindness. Dropped in the middle of a lost place, not being able to see anything around you, not knowing where you were or how you got there, only knowing that you  _were_  there – wherever ‘there’ was.

 

It was an unpleasant thought and Lauren shivered. She clasped her fingers tighter around Camila’s wrist, tugging on it imploringly.

 

“You’re sure you don’t have any memories of Christmas?” she asked. “Opening presents as a kid, visiting Santa at the mall… nothing at all?”

 

Camila was staring fixedly at the sky, her head tilted back. It was dark out; Lauren squinted to see her expression. The two of them were sitting by Camila’s garden of strange seeds and waiting for the trees to grow. It was one of Camila’s favorite things to do. Every time they did it Lauren thought, a little more, that the seeds really were growing beneath the surface.

 

Shadows covered Camila’s face and her expression was carefully blank. She might have been watching the stars – Lauren suspected Camila was just ignoring her. When Camila wasn’t interested in a topic, she was happy to pretend the conversation wasn’t happening at all.

 

“You must remember  _something_ ,” Lauren said. Camila wasn’t swayed from her stargazing and Lauren slumped unhappily, tilting her chin to glare up at the sky.

 

Lauren wasn’t one for holiday spirit. She hadn’t bothered to really celebrate anything in the last couple of years; there had been nothing to celebrate. She hated the shoppers, the decorations, the phony cheerfulness, the whole season. Still, she couldn’t imagine what it would be like not to remember celebrating it at all.

 

Camila yanked on Lauren’s hair in a strange, comforting gesture

 

“The Grinch stole Christmas,” Camila said, sounding hopeful. Her head was still tilted back but she was watching Lauren out of the corner of her eye, probably imagining Lauren couldn’t tell. “The Whos in Whoville. Scrooge the sheep.”

 

A stupid lump formed in Lauren’s throat and she swallowed thickly around it. “That was with me, Camz.”

 

“Well,” Camila said reasonably, “I remember it.”

 

Maybe Camila didn’t remember anything else, but she remembered Lauren. She remembered the stupid movie they’d watched and the odd conversations they had. She was here, in the present, even if she couldn’t always grasp the past.

 

Camila didn’t remember, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t make new memories with Lauren. It didn’t mean Lauren couldn’t make new memories with her.

 

“I hate Christmas,” Lauren said after a moment, grasping Camila’s hand in the dark, “but you’re going to love it.”

——-

A few presents, a little Christmas decoration, introducing Camila to some traditions – it wouldn’t be so hard and Lauren was sure it would be worth it. Anything with Camila was worth it.

 

As far as traditions went, Lauren thought fighting one’s way through the crowds at the mall was probably essential.

 

Unfortunately, Camila was not car-compatible.

 

The car was one of the few things that threw Camila off her joyful, pleased acceptance of life. It terrified her. Camila being frightened made Lauren want to wrap her up in a protective cocoon in a corner of their home and never ever leave – which wasn’t conducive to getting to the mall either.

 

They had to get there somehow. Lauren wanted to show Camila Christmas. What was Christmas without crowded spaces and being jabbed in the stomach by the person next to you?

 

“The subway!” Lauren cried, snapping her fingers. Camila watched her with vague interest, chewing on a three year old candy cane she’d found in an old box of Christmas decorations. Apparently it still tasted good enough for Camila’s sweet tooth.

 

“Okay, Lolo.” Camila popped the candy cane out to lick her lips. “There will be more Christmas candy on the subway?”

 

“Um, probably not,” Lauren admitted. Camila pouted. “There will be at the mall, though. You’ll like it.”

 

Camila bit her lip worriedly, twirling the sticky, half eaten candy cane in her fingers. “Not the car?”

 

“Never the car,” Lauren promised fiercely. She didn’t want Camila to be scared anymore than Camila would have wanted to be – maybe more, even. “It’s different. It’s underground so you can’t see anything, and it moves on tracks, so I can’t screw it up,” Lauren teased, feeling rewarded when Camila snickered.

 

Camila set her candy cane down with purpose and Lauren preened. She always felt an absurd pride when she convinced Camila of something. Camila was stubborn and convinced of her ways and it didn’t happen often.

 

“Not yet,” Camila warned when Lauren stood. She tapped her cheek with a painted fingernail and then pointed at her head. Her head, that was free of bows, a rarity for Camila. Lauren hadn’t even noticed.

 

“Of course,” Lauren said, grinning. “You need to put on your bow first.”

——-

The subway wasn’t as crowded as Lauren had expected but there were more people than Camila was used to. She didn’t seem bothered. Lauren felt more nervous than Camila looked.

 

People were pressed together in the small, enclosed space. A baby was squalling loudly. In the corner was a homeless man, half curled up in a blanket with a newspaper clutched in front of his face.

 

Of course, Camila sat down next to him.

 

“I like your hat,” Camila told the man.

 

The hat was a strange thing. Perhaps once it had been an average cowboy hat, now the top was cut out, a crumpled crow’s feather stuck out of one side and an indecipherable, reflective thing out of the other.

 

It was shiny, of course Camila liked it. Lauren sat down next to her, covering Camila’s hand with her own. She felt possessive, protective. It was okay, Lauren told herself. It wasn’t weird. They were never around crowds and Camila wasn’t used to interacting with people, only objects. It was okay for Lauren to feel possessive of her.

 

The man turned towards Camila, lowering his newspaper to speak. “Like is love she said my name but I never knew hers. What’s in a name? Roses – roses in school I went but I didn’t come.”

 

“You’re welcome,” said Camila. “I like roses, too. Lolo and I plant trees together, but not roses yet. We will, though.”

 

The man stared at Camila with wide, dark eyes rimmed in bruised circles. His face was covered in a layer of grime, his clothing tattered and old. He looked like anyone from the street, worn and rejected by life. An outsider.

 

Camila chattered happily to him like they were old friends. He was a stranger, but to Camila he wasn’t strange.

 

It made Lauren think of Camila in the same position. Sleeping on the subway, living without a home, no one there to care about her or talk to her or be her… Lolo.

 

Lauren couldn’t stand the thought of Camila being alone, of being alone herself. It made her feel sick, heart in her throat. Lauren could have blamed it on motion sickness, but the subway hadn’t started to move yet.

 

Haltingly, Lauren slipped an arm around Camila’s waist, pulling her tightly against her side. Camila curled naturally into Lauren, her chin resting on Lauren’s shoulder and her hair brushing Lauren’s nose.

 

Camila chattered happily at her new friend, burying the man under a tumbling heap of enthusiastic words.

 

When the subway began to move Camila wasn’t scared. Lauren held on to her anyway.

——-

The fountain Camila had loved so much the first time they’d gone to the mall was covered in gold bells and red ribbons. They sat on the edge of it, Camila swinging one bell back and forth and listening to it tingle quietly in the overwhelming noise of holiday shoppers.

 

Camila was thrilled with all the mall’s decorations. The people in Christmas sweaters, the stores full of bright, alluring gifts. There was a long line of children and their parents in the center of the mall, leading up to a Santa in a big red suit with a child in his lap and elves at his sides.

 

They stood by, Camila watching the costumed workers and Lauren watching Camila.

 

Camila was enchanted with the whole experience, the mall and the subway. Lauren couldn’t help the warmth that grew in her chest, just watching her. Camila making memories and Lauren making memories of her.

 

“Can I sit on Santa’s lap, Lolo?” Camila asked, turning wide, begging eyes on Lauren.

 

Lauren coughed, barely avoiding choking on the air. Camila stared at her innocently and she shifted from foot to foot. “Um…”

 

Camila cackled and kicked Lauren sharply in the ankle. “You’re easy.”

 

Lauren probably would have gone along with it if Camila really wanted to. She reached down to rub her ankle huffily. “You’re evil. No presents for you.”

 

Camila grinned and pulled Lauren off towards another store.

 

Of all the stores in the mall, Camila’s favorite, not at all to Lauren’s surprise, was a shop that consisted entirely of Christmas decoration and wrapping paper with dazzling bows.

 

“If I get you something, you’re going to like the wrapping more than the actual gift, aren’t you?” Lauren teased as Camila collected bag after bag of colorful bows to her chest.

 

Camila stuck her tongue out childishly and Lauren took that as a yes.

 

The store was full of Christmas decoration and Lauren wandered as Camila happily collected every sparkly, shiny ribbon she absolutely had to have. Cookie cutters in Christmas shapes were piled on one shelf. An angel tree topper sat between two sparkling ornaments. Wreaths that smelled of Christmas were stacked in the back of the store. Beside the wreaths, sitting innocently on a low shelf, was a cluster of Mistletoe.

 

Lauren picked it up.

 

She’d never kissed anyone under Mistletoe, had only seen it in sappy, badly acted Christmas movies. Lauren always rolled her eyes at those movies, unrealistic as they were. No one found their soul mate under a dingy little plant, kissing under the disguise of holiday spirit.

 

She turned the cluster of Mistletoe over and over in her hand. It was tied together with a cheery red ribbon and ready to hang over a doorway.

 

Lauren jolted as Camila appeared at her side with an armful of bows.

 

“What’s that?” Camila asked, poking her nose up next to the Mistletoe. She took a short, deep breath and then sneezed, pulling back and wrinkling her nose.

 

Lauren laughed, setting the Mistletoe down guiltily. “It’s… yeah, nothing.”

 

Camila looked thoughtful, tilting her head like she didn’t quite believe it. Lauren shifted, blushing irrationally and running a hand through her long hair.

 

With a shrug, Camila shoved two bags of bows into Lauren’s arms. “We need those,” she said, pointing to the bags. Then she frowned, waving to the bags in her other arms. “And these—” Camila waved towards the wall behind her. “All of these.”

 

Lauren blinked. “All the bows in the store? Really?”

 

Camila thought seriously for a moment and then nodded. “Yes.”

 

“Oh,” said Lauren, staring down at the two bags in her arms. She took another armful from Camila so they could collect more off the wall. “Okay.”

——-

When they came back from the mall, Mrs. Smith’s lawn was covered in chaotic, cluttered holiday spirit.

 

The woman prided herself on her Christmas decorations. Personally, Lauren thought it was probably less holiday spirit and more competition with her neighbors. Each year Mrs. Smith had to have the biggest, the best, the brightest holiday decorations. She squashed all the other houses’ tentative cheer beneath her own, beating everyone over the head with blinking lights and twirling reindeer and bad holiday music.

 

The sun had set while they were walking home from the subway and it was just dark enough for the lights covering Mrs. Smith’s house to be on, blinding Lauren as she looked up at it. She was about to make a grumpy remark about never being able to sleep with the light shining through her window when Camila gasped and dropped her shopping bags.

 

“Look,” she breathed, wide eyed. “Look, Lauren!”

 

“What?” Lauren spun quickly, her heart racing, but all she saw was her neighbor’s house, light up and blinding. “What’s wrong?”

 

Camila was silent. She looked awestruck, staring with eyes wide and worshipful. When Lauren didn’t catch on, Camila tugged on her shoulder, turning her towards the house again.

 

This time, instead of too bright lights and obnoxious holiday decoration, Lauren saw stars.

——-

Lauren was lucky she’d grown used to being on the roof.

 

Camila spent enough time up there that the height didn’t seem so scary anymore. When Lauren thought of the roof, she thought less of the height and more of Camila’s curious, odd conversations with the stars. The way the moonlight would highlight the curve of her cheek.

 

It was a little different, sitting beside Camila and having quiet conversations, compared to walking by the edge of the roof, hanging cord after tangled cord of lights.

 

Especially when Camila was still so unafraid of the edge.

 

“Camila,” Lauren said, tugging on the rope of lights to get Camila’s attention. “Don’t get so close.”

 

Camila tugged back playfully. “Don’t be scared.”

 

“Not scared,” Lauren insisted, but made her way quickly across the precarious surface to grab Camila when she didn’t move away from the edge. “Just cautious.”

 

Camila nodded sincerely and wrapped a rope of lights around Lauren’s forehead.

 

“I can see you’re taking this seriously,” Lauren teased, keeping a careful arm wrapped around Camila’s waist.

 

“You’re too serious,” Camila accused, sticking her tongue out. “Where are all the stars? You promised we’d make stars.”

 

Lauren grinned. “We are. You’ll see.”

 

Camila’s eyes light up with an inner happiness Lauren could not help but feel protective of. Leaving her arm wrapped firmly around Camila’s waist, Lauren tossed the last strand of lights off the house and onto a tree.

——-

“Look at all the stars, Lolo,” Camila whispered, quiet and awed.

 

The tiny, colorful lights curled haphazardly around the edges of the roof, partially on the tree off to the side and hanging down precariously over the garage. The colors meshed together dizzyingly and the strand over the window was dark, unlit for some unknown reason.

 

Lauren thought their lights looked better than anyone else on the street.

 

The way Camila was staring at them, like they were something sacred, divine, Lauren thought she must have agreed.

 

“I’m looking,” Lauren assured her when Camila glanced her way worriedly. She brushed a soft coil of hair off Camila’s neck. The light was reflecting brilliantly from the house across her skin and Camila was still the most colorful star.

——-

Christmas was a holiday made for Camila. Lights that shined like stars, wrapping paper that sparkled, her very own tree inside the house.

 

Picking out their tree had been left up to Lauren. However, when Lauren found herself in a parking lot that looked more like a forest with price tags, she was at a loss.

 

Would Camila want a tall tree or a short tree? Would she like a dark one or a light one? What if Lauren picked one and when she brought it home Camila didn’t like it? What if Lauren brought it home and it wouldn’t talk to her, and Camila was offended and her first Christmas was ruined?

 

Lauren squinted at each bunch of trees as she walked by them, silently wondering what their personalities would be like.

 

It was inconvenient trees didn’t talk to her the way they did Camila.

 

When she saw the grouping of trees at the end of the lot, Lauren knew they were perfect. Unlike the others, these trees were smaller and planted in buckets of dirt. They were still alive. When Christmas was over, she and Camila could plant the tree together. This one would grow – this one would actually grow.

 

As Lauren pulled one of the trees away from the group, she was struck with the odd thought that she was pulling it away from its friends.

 

Realization came in a rush, and Lauren reached out for a second tree.

 

Two trees together, a pair.

 

When Lauren returned with the two trees tied into the back of her truck, Camila was already in the front yard and promptly threw herself into Lauren’s arms.

 

“You brought me friends!” she cried excitedly.

 

It hadn’t been exactly what Lauren was going for, but she grinned and spun Camila around anyway. It was good, Camila’s unusual way of doing things only made them better.

 

Camila wriggled, too excited to stay in Lauren’s hold, and Lauren released her almost reluctantly. “We can plant them in the garden next year,” Lauren said, feeling very proud of herself as she pulled the trees out of the truck. Thank god they weren’t too big.

 

“With the others,” Camila said, petting the side of one tree fondly.

 

“With the others,” Lauren agreed. Guitar trees and Lauren’s-beanies trees and Christmas trees. They’d all fit together perfectly.

 

They decorated the trees with Lauren’s grandmother’s old Christmas ornaments from untouched, set aside boxes. They sparkled and Camila thrilled over each one. A strange feeling lingered in Lauren’s chest.

 

Tinsel and bows were scattered all across the floor in an organized, odd way that indicated Camila had placed everything with careful purpose. Elvis had promptly removed a few of the lower ornaments to bat around the room. The stars on top were crooked, leaning slightly towards each other as the trees stood side by side.

 

They stood before their two trees, Camila leaning into Lauren like she always did, mimicking positions. It worked for them, Lauren thought. Strange and different and wonderful and of course, always shiny.

 

“Bah, Humbug?” Camila said, sounding curious.

 

Lauren shook her head, slightly breathless. “No. No, I think I changed my mind. Christmas is okay.”

 

It was better than okay, actually. Camila had tinsel in her hair, which Lauren didn’t think had gotten there by accident. She looked ridiculous and special and Lauren’s.

 

Later they settled on the couch, Camila’s feet tucked comfortably into Lauren’s lap, and watched  _How the Grinch Saved Christmas_.

——-

They woke early on Christmas day, Lauren’s hatred of the morning and Camila’s grogginess suppressed by childish excitement.

 

When Camila found the small presents Lauren had left under the tree, she fluttered happily. Lauren told her Santa had left them, and Camila cheerfully threw a Christmas ornament at her head.

 

Mrs. Smith brought over star-shaped cookies, the usual sneer mostly subdued on her lips as she shoved them into Lauren’s arms. She insulted their Christmas lights as she left but it wasn’t nearly vicious enough.

 

Camila munched happily on the cookies while Lauren pondered the loss of all normalcy in the world and worried about food poisoning.

 

When Camila tried to feed her sugary cookies, Lauren let her.

 

They sat by the trees together, watching as the lights shined. Camila had her new, sparkly sneakers on and her other gift, still wrapped, settled possessively in her lap. Lauren didn’t expect for that one to be opened for a very long time with how affectionate and gentle Camila was being with the wrapping.

 

“I haven’t done this in a long time,” Lauren said thoughtfully.

 

“Why not?” Camila asked, tilting her head back to watch Lauren. Her messy hair was framed around her face, pretty and home and Camila.

 

Why… Lauren wasn’t sure, now. Christmas with her parents lost its charm when Lauren was fifteen and her father had left them. But mostly, after her grandmother had died, Lauren just hadn’t done anything. Last Christmas had consisted of unplugging the phone and getting very, very drunk until the whole fiasco was over with.

 

This was different. Camila was here and this was different.

 

“I didn’t have you,” Lauren said. She reached out to touch Camila’s cheek familiarly once.

 

Camila gave her a pleased, warm smile. “Now you do.”

 

Now she did.

 

Christmas music was echoing softly from the speakers in Mrs. Smith’s front lawn, the lights shining and Camila smiling. The house smelled like juniper and maybe Lauren would try to make cocoa, just to see if Camila would try it.

 

It felt new, all of this, but old and comfortable too.

 

It felt like the first Christmas. As Camila began to sing a holiday song, Lauren silently promised her it wouldn’t be the last.

 

They were okay. It was enough.


	22. Switch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

Lauren thought it was enough.

 

It wasn’t enough.

 

It should have been. Being with Camila, being Camila’s friend, it should have been enough. Lauren wanted it to be enough.

 

No amount of Camila that was not everything would ever be enough.

 

Having Camila in her life made Lauren greedy. Camila was more than Lauren had ever asked for, more than she deserved, more than anything she’d ever had, and still, not enough.

 

She shouldn’t have wanted more. She didn’t need Camila in her arms, Camila in her bed, Camila in her heart. Those things were frivolous, fake. Lauren had Camila in her life.

 

It should have been enough.

 

‘Should’ was a word that had a grudge against Lauren.

 

There were too many ‘should’s. Should go to work. Should be polite to neighbors. Should keep volume of music down. Should not be in love with Camila. Should not let Camila be in love with her.

 

Should not murder mother in her sleep.

 

Lauren was having a hard time with the last one, lately.

 

 _“_ _You have a responsibility to be a good neighbor, Lauren. You inherited more than just that house._ _”_  The sound of her voice echoed unpleasantly from the phone pressed against Lauren’s ear.

 

It was the third time Lauren had spoken to Clara in the last week – or, more accurately, been spoken  _to_  – and those were only the times Lauren had picked up the phone instead of simply unplugging it. Her mother hadn’t called for months before Mrs. Smith had apparently gone complaining to her about Lauren and her ‘homeless guest.’

 

Lauren didn’t see why she should call now only to complain about… whatever she was complaining about. Something.

 

“Uh huh,” she mumbled in vague agreement when the rhythm of her voice slowed, expecting a response.

 

Camila was neither homeless nor a guest. She belonged in the house, their home, more than Lauren ever had.

 

Maybe she didn’t flip the lights on when it got dark and maybe she preferred the floor to a chair. Maybe she sang lyrics that didn’t match the ones on the CDs and maybe she was disturbed by the phone, but she did belong. The paintings had names and the toaster was a friend.

 

 _“—_ _boy,_ _”_  Clara was saying.  _“_ _If you_ _’_ _re going to be neighbors you might as well_ _—”_

 

“Yeah,” Lauren said. “Cool.”

 

The house felt emptier with Clara’s voice in her ear. Lauren wandered down the hall, checking rooms until she found Camila sitting on the counter in the bathroom. She was putting on her bow with careful precision.

 

Camila had not finished yet, her bow looking funny, leaving her with a silly, lopsided appearance. Lauren spied on her from the doorway, wondering where her camera was. It would be worth it, she thought, to see the look on Camila’s face if Lauren got a picture of her like this.

 

_“_ _Lauren, are you listening to me right now?_ _”_

 

Lauren shifted the phone against her ear, meeting Camila’s gaze in the mirror. Camila made a soft noise, either of disapproval or greeting, and quickly went to work on her unfinished bow. It was too bad, Lauren thought. She’d looked cute that way.

 

“Yeah, okay,” Lauren agreed into the phone. “Sounds good. Talk to you later.”

 

_“_ _Lauren_ _–_ _!_ _”_

 

Lauren hung up the phone. She tossed it aside, moving to stand at Camila’s back with a teasing smile. “Half normal person, half Camila.”

 

Camila stuck her tongue out playfully, waving a hair pin in Lauren’s direction. “I’ll make you pretty too,” she said. Lauren was sure it was a threat.

 

“You be careful,” Lauren warned. “I have blackmail material. I’ll tell all your friends how you look without a bow.”

 

Camila hummed, unconcerned with this. Once the bow was secured on her head, she reached for a sticky lip gloss that Lauren knew – shouldn’t have known, but knew – tasted sweet and fruity.

 

“What will you tell them I look like?” Camila wondered. She met Lauren’s gaze in the mirror as she pursed her lips together with the clear gloss.

 

When Lauren had first met Camila, she’d found the bows and the colors odd. She had thought everything about Camila was strange, the clothing and the messy long brown hair, the way she talked and the things she did. It was weird.

 

Lauren didn’t think that anymore.

 

Camila was ever changing, her face showing each emotion, her whole body expressing exactly how she felt. Drooping and sad like a wilted flower when she was disappointed. Mussed hair and sleepy eyes in the morning. Alert and vibrant when she was excited – Camila’s natural state. Sometimes sleek and intense, watching Lauren with dark eyes. Sometimes ethereal and glowing, wise and knowing.

 

In all her forms, she always just looked like Camila to Lauren.

 

“Camila,” Lauren said. “I’ll tell them you look like my Camz.”

——-

“You can be the hero,” Camila said, handing Lauren a butter knife with flourish. “This is your sword. Use it well, Knight Lauren.”

 

“I’m a hero and a knight?” Lauren asked, spinning the butter knife so it reflected the light and Camila made pleased, impressed noises. “That sounds like a lot of work. You sure I can’t just be the court jester or something?”

 

“No,” Camila said, giving a lofty little tilt of her chin. “You accepted the sword and now you’re the hero. That’s how it works.”

 

Fairytales had become Camila’s latest obsession. Lauren had rented one on a stroke of genius from the movie place near her work. It was no surprise that Camila instantly fell in love.

 

She was taken with each story, each princess and her plight, each hero and his triumph. Camila was so happy with the movies, she bounced in place as she watched them. Her emotions were contagious, as always, and Lauren couldn’t help but be pulled into it as well.

 

“Lauren,” Camila said, poking at her, “the knight doesn’t sit around all day. She has to go fight the frog to protect the kingdom and save the princess.”

 

Lauren raised an eyebrow. “There isn’t a frog in the house.”

 

Camila blinked.

 

“Camila, tell me there isn’t a frog in the house.”

 

Camila bit her lip.

 

There was a frog in the house.

 

Lauren sighed. “Great.” Camila smiled brightly and Lauren tapped her on the forehead with the butter knife.

 

“Arg!” cried Camila, throwing herself across the floor in a graceless sprawl. Lauren stared in shock.

 

Oh. Right. The butter knife had been her sword.

 

Oops.

 

“Did I kill the princess again?” she asked, poking Camila’s arm. Camila kept her eyes shut, indicating that yes, she was dead again. In every fairytale Camila decided they would reenact, Lauren had an unfortunate knack for killing, losing, and on one occasion squishing the princess. “I told you, you should have made me the jester.”

 

Taking Camila’s hand, Lauren pulled her back into a seated position. Camila took Lauren’s butter knife away, as clearly she couldn’t be trusted with it, and gave her a consoling pat on the head.

 

Lauren was about to ask about the relative size and location of the frog Camila had undoubtedly brought into the house when a sharp sound interrupted her. Camila stiffened, her eyes wide.

 

“It’s just the doorbell,” Lauren said, stroking Camila’s arm.

 

She wondered if the doorbell had ever rung when Camila was in the house and realized that, no, it only ever rang when Camila was amusing herself with it. It was rare anyone else came to the door. If they did, it was always Mrs. Smith, and she had a mysterious ability to let herself in, even when Lauren was sure she’d locked the door.

 

“It’s nothing to be afraid of,” Lauren promised when she noticed Camila eyeing the telephone suspiciously. Camila still looked unsure and Lauren took her hand, holding it tightly as they walked down the hall.

 

When Lauren pulled the door open, expecting a salesman and instead coming face to face with her mother, she decided she’d spoken too soon. Clara was definitely something to fear.

 

The first sight of her was always the worst. A woman who had never much liked her, never much liked children, but she was Lauren’s mother, still. She’d been there, even if she hadn’t been there for her. She’d grown up calling her ‘Mom.’

 

The first sight of her was always,  _Am I good enough yet?_

 

The second sight of her was always one of bitter distaste, because she would not, because she never was, and because Lauren couldn’t stand the feeling, couldn’t stand herself for wondering after all the years of knowing, knowing she wasn’t.

 

After that there was only a lingering distaste, tiredness and sarcasm and dreary blankness.

 

Today, Camila tugged on Lauren’s jacket sleeve and peeked at her over her shoulder. “Hello,” she said, sounding curious but pleased. “Are you the witch or the queen?”

 

Clara stared.

 

“You can’t be the dragon,” Camila told her, apologetic. “Elvis is the dragon.”

 

 _She can be the witch,_  Lauren wanted to say, but Clara was clearing her throat pointedly in what Lauren thought was a very witch-like way, really.

 

“Hey, Mom,” said Lauren. “What do you want?”

 

Clara rolled her eyes but Lauren knew she wanted something. People always did.

 

“May I come in?” she asked, stepping past Lauren into the house to indicate that it had not been a question after all. She walked down the hall, heeled shoes clicking against the floor, and Camila made a low, curious sound, following her. Lauren followed Camila.

 

Clara was still a young woman. Though her attitude made her seem as old as Mrs. Smith, with a constant frown on her face. It gave her a permanent displeased look. Lauren didn’t think it was an inaccurate representation of her moods.

 

She stopped at the end of the hall, standing in the family room. Lauren didn’t invite her to sit.

 

“You took the family photos down,” she observed, scanning the walls.

 

“A year ago.”

 

Her frown deepened. “You haven’t called me in months.”

 

It wasn’t like Clara was any better; she hadn’t called her either. At least, she hadn’t until she’d heard about Camila. “I got busy.”

 

Camila was hovering by Clara’s shoulder and she turned to her, giving a false smile. “With you.”

 

As ever, Camila was undisturbed. If she was upset by having her in the house it would have been a really nice excuse to ask her to leave, Lauren thought sadly.

 

Camila tilted her head, perhaps to view Clara from a more complimentary angle. Lauren didn’t think she was going to find one. “Hello.”

 

Lauren grinned. Camila was more polite than her mother was.

 

“Hello,” Clara echoed. “Who are you?”

 

Camila tilted her head to examine her from the other angle. Whatever she was looking for – something shiny? Lauren wondered – she must not have found it, because she quickly lost interest and walked right past the woman, back to where her butter knife sword and fairytales were spread across the floor.

 

Looking startled, Clara made a halting reach for her but Camila had already moved on to more magical things.

 

It was odd, Lauren thought, that Camila was so completely disinterested in some people and enchanted by others. She seemed to like Lauren all right.

 

Her mother made an odd noise, offended, and turned back to Lauren. “I came because I’m concerned,” Clara said, adopting a strange, soft look in her eye. It was almost affectionate. Lauren shivered and folded her arms uncomfortably over her chest. “Molly is concerned as well. About the house, about you, about the homeless… that’s her?”

 

Lauren was sure the world would end before Mrs. Smith was concerned about her. Concerned about gossip? Yes. Concerned about Lauren? It was laughable.

 

“Camila’s not homeless,” Lauren said. “She lives here.”

 

Clara nodded, eyes flickering across the room to Camila. “Who is she?”

 

“She’s Camila,” Lauren said. Camila was twirling the butter knife, trying to reflect the light like Lauren had. Lauren couldn’t keep the affection from her tone – her mother wouldn’t notice anyway.

 

“Yes,” Clara said, sounding annoyed again already. “Where is Camila from? How did Camila get here? Why is Camila living in mother’s house?”

 

“My house,” Lauren corrected. It had never felt that way, like hers. Her grandmother’s old bedroom, her old things, her memories. It had never felt like hers, but now it was beginning to feel like theirs—Camila and Lauren’s.

 

Giving a shudder, Clara said nothing about the ownership of the home. Lauren knew her opinion anyway.

 

“Camila is from here. With me,” she said. “She’s here because… she said she’d stay. With me.”

 

“I grew up here, you know,” Clara said, adopting a tone that told Lauren a lecture was coming.

 

“Obviously,” Lauren mumbled. Clara ignored her, walking further into the room as if she was welcome, because she’d grown up there, because it had belong to Lauren’s grandmother, because she was Lauren’s mother and Lauren couldn’t tell her she wasn’t welcome, even if she wasn’t.

 

“I grew up here, I lived here—and your Camila certainly didn’t.”

 

“I didn’t mean it like that. She’s just… she’s Camila, okay?” Lauren frowned at her feet as her mother ran her fingers over the drywall with a familiar touch. It still didn’t belong to her.

  
It would have been impossible to explain who Camila was; she was so many things. Lauren didn’t trust Clara enough to share any of them with her.

 

As Clara moved to sit on the couch, Camila wandered past her, out of the room. Lauren followed after her, relieved for an excuse to abandon the uncomfortable situation. Undisturbed, Camila drifted happily in the front yard.

 

“You don’t know where she’s from,” Clara said, marching after Lauren. At least she was out of their house now. “You don’t know who she is—Lauren, do you know anything about this girl you have living in mother’s home?”

 

Camila wasn’t wearing shoes as she moved across the grass. Lauren knew it was because she was worried she’d upset the weeds.

 

“You don’t!” Clara said. “You didn’t think to perhaps do some research before you invited her to  _live_  with you? Where did you even meet her? She could be anyone!”

 

Swallowing thickly, Lauren refused to meet her mother’s gaze, instead watching Camila. Her hair was down, floating around her shoulders, Lauren’s hoodie slightly impairing her movements.

 

Slowly, Camila began to sway, perhaps mimicking the slight movement of the trees in the wind.

 

“I know,” Lauren said, confidence restored simply by seeing Camila. Camila could do amazing things, even when she didn’t know it. “She sings in her sleep. She thinks there’s a hidden nest of snakes in my hair. She insists on having dessert before dinner. She talks to the stars, makes friends with everything—she sees worth in everything. She sees worth in me.”

 

Clara looked away, staring off into the yard. She raised her eyebrows and Lauren followed her line of sight to the unknowing object of their conversation.

 

“She’s…” Clara trailed off, the permanent disapproving frown on her face pulled down more than usual.

 

“She’s Camila,” Lauren filled in for her.

 

“She’s very strange.” Clara corrected, eyes trained on Camila. “And very… She’s very strange.”

 

Camila was and Lauren nodded. It wasn’t bad.

 

“What’s wrong with her?” Clara asked. The look on her face reminded Lauren of the one customer gave her beanies at Cocoa’s.

 

“She’s eccentric,” Lauren defended, watching Camila on the lawn.

 

Clara frowned. “What’s she doing?”

 

“Talking to Mrs. Smith’s garden gnomes,” Lauren answered and didn’t feel embarrassed at all.

 

When Camila picked one up and kissed it, however, she did feel slightly worried.

 

“Camz!” Lauren called, jogging over to her, relieved to get away from her mother. “Those are gross.”

 

Camila turned around, bestowing Lauren with a bright smile that made Lauren’s stomach flip, her mood lift.

 

“Hey,” she said, stroking Camila’s cheek, to reassure Camila or to reassure herself. “Are those the seven dwarfs?”

 

Camila looked pleased. “Yes.”

 

“Am I the hero again?”

 

Camila rolled her eyes and did not dignify that with an answer. Of course Lauren was.

 

Lauren glanced over her shoulder to her mother, inching closer to Camila. “How would you feel about going for a ride on the hero’s faithful steed? To, you know, visit another country for awhile, get away. Mostly to get away.”

 

Camila looked confused. “Is that a fairytale?”

 

“No,” Lauren said. “But we might escape my mother.”

 

“No,” said Camila, looking over Lauren’s shoulder. “That won’t work.”

 

When Lauren turned around again Mrs. Smith was in her front yard, standing next to her mother.

 

“Oh God,” said Lauren, arms flopping uselessly to her sides. “What did I do to deserve this? What could anyone do to deserve this?”

 

Camila kissed Lauren’s cheek affectionately. When Lauren turned to her, Camila was close and their noses bumped. Camila laughed and nudged Lauren back, gentle and sweet. At least one of them was in a good mood.

 

Lauren whined pathetically. “Make them go away, Camila.”

 

Camila stroked her arm comfortingly. When Lauren peeked at the two women again they had not magically disappeared. Clara noticed her gaze, waving for her to come over.

 

Lauren considered how cowardly it would be to hide behind Camila.

 

“Lauren!” her mother called.

 

Lauren looked at the sky.

 

It was Camila who walked happily over to Mrs. Smith and Clara. Lauren quickly followed, unable to sacrifice Camila for her own sake.

 

“Lauren,” her mother said as she walked up, her hand hooked around Camila’s wrist desperately. “I also came to discuss with you, as I said on the phone, Molly’s grandson is moving back in—”

 

“I pity him,” Lauren mumbled.

 

Clara glared and Lauren wilted. “I’d like you to go out with him when he gets here, make him feel welcome like the nice young lady you are.”

 

“But I’m not a nice young lady,” Lauren protested, tugging on Camila’s fingers to get Camila to back her up. “I’m a cynical hermit.”

 

Mrs. Smith looked worried. “I happen to agree with her. I do not think this is the best idea, Clara—”

 

“I raised you better than that,” Clara interrupted, somehow waving Mrs. Smith off. Unbelievably, the woman shut her mouth. Her mother could even intimidate Mrs. Smith into silence, Lauren realized. Which was unfortunate, because Mrs. Smith actually seemed to be on Lauren’s side for once. Possibly because she thought Lauren would traumatize her grandson for life. Lauren couldn’t blame her, she probably would.

 

Clara was convinced, though. “You can go out with the boy for a night. Maybe you’ll even make a… proper friend.”

 

Clara’s eyes flickered to Camila and Lauren tensed. She gritted her teeth, a million insults on her lips.  _You didn_ _’_ _t raise me at all_  and  _She liked me better than you, her own daughter._

 

Camila spoke before Lauren could. “A friend, Lolo,” she said, an encouraging smile pulled across her lips, strange and small. Her fingers stroked Lauren’s wrist soothingly. “You’ll like that.”

 

“I will?” Lauren was pretty sure she wouldn’t.

 

Camila nodded sagely. “No star can shine alone.”

 

 _I thought I had you_ , Lauren almost protested. She wasn’t alone; she had Camila.

 

Didn’t she?

 

Clara cleared her throat, hands on her hips. Mrs. Smith was frowning deeply but she said nothing. Camila squeezed Lauren’s wrist.

 

“I… okay. If you want me to.”

 

Clara gave a satisfied nod. Lauren hadn’t been talking to her.

——-

When Clara left – with an ominous ‘We’ll talk more about this later’ – Lauren and Camila were alone again.

 

It was decidedly less comfortable than it had been.

 

Lauren was always the one to push away. Camila was the one to press, to want, to need, and Lauren was the one to give, to provide, and sometimes to push away. It wasn’t something she wanted to do, it was something that had to be done. She didn’t like it.

 

Camila had never pushed Lauren away before. Encouraging Lauren to go make a friend, a different friend, felt like being pushed away. She didn’t like that, either.

 

“I don’t think you can have more than one soul mate,” Lauren said, biting her bottom lip. “So why bother, right? You’re here and…”

 

“I’m here,” said Camila, twirling the butter knife in her fingers again. “Are you?”

 

Lauren was pretty sure she was. “Yeah?’

 

Camila looked up, giving an encouraging smile. “Good.” She offered the butter knife to Lauren again. “Be the hero, Lolo.”

 

Lauren took the sword.


	23. Vicarious Questions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for being terrible on the updates but no the story is not over yet. LAUREN STILL NEEDS TO FIND OUT CAMILA'S STORY.  
>   
> That being said, please enjoy, you beautiful people.

Hearing Camila’s voice was the feeling of being home. When she sang along to Lauren’s guitar, when Lauren played along to Camila’s words, when their voices created harmony for them alone, it felt like freedom. When Camila spoke to Lauren, words that made no sense or too much, it was comfortable, comforting. Camila hummed when she was happy and murmured annoyed things when she was upset.

 

After Camila had been so quiet for days, after she’d refused to speak at all, just hearing her voice brought Lauren the sense that all was right with the world. Lauren liked Camila’s voice.

 

Lauren woke to Camila’s voice.

 

She lay in bed, eyes still shut, half asleep and just listening. The rise and fall of Camila’s tone, pauses and drawn out sounds, thoughtful humming.

 

The sound wasn’t that of whispers in Lauren’s ear, like it used to be when they shared a bed. It wasn’t the melodious sound of Camila breaking into song. The longer Lauren listened, she realized it wasn’t the familiar tone Camila took with the paintings she picked up conversation with, either.

 

Eyes snapping open, Lauren sat up in bed with a jolt. Through her bedroom door, left a crack open, Lauren could hear Camila speaking. She couldn’t hear the words, but something about Camila’s tone was not quite right.

 

“Camz?” she called, already stepping out of bed. Camila did not call back, didn’t show up smiling at Lauren’s door, and Lauren quickly went to find her.

 

To Lauren’s relief, Camila had not invited a stranger into the house. She was sitting in the kitchen by herself, a bow on her head already.

 

She was talking into the phone.

 

“Yes,” Camila was saying. “To grow guitars, of course. Do they not have trees where you live? That must be very sad.”

 

Lauren gaped.

 

Camila’s face brightened immediately when she saw Lauren. “Good morning, Lolo!” she said right into the phone.

 

Lauren stood, speechless, and watched as Camila responded to something that had been said. She furrowed her eyebrows, looking a bit lost.

 

After a moment, she reached out and offered the phone to Lauren. “The phone wants to talk to you.”

 

Slowly, Lauren took the telephone from Camila’s fingers. On the display was her mother’s name.

 

 _“_ _Lauren!_ _”_  she could hear Clara saying without even holding the phone up to her ear.  _“_ _What is_ wrong  _with that girl!_ _”_

 

Lauren hung up.

 

“The phone should mind her own business,” Lauren said at Camila’s curious look. “Was she bothering you?”

 

Clara had been calling annoyingly often in the last week, after she’d met Camila. She seemed only to call to ask about her, about what Lauren was ‘doing’ with her, like Lauren had some control over what Camila chose to do.

 

“I don’t think she likes me,” Camila said. Her tone was observant, not sounding hurt. Lauren still bristled.

 

Her mother didn’t like Camila, not that she had any right. She kept asking what was  _wrong_ with Camila, asking who she was, asking why she was, how she was, asking.

 

Lauren didn’t have answers. She didn’t even understand the questions, really.

 

Where Camila came from, how she got there, Clara seemed to think they – she – needed to know everything. Lauren didn’t need to know anything. She just needed Camila to have gotten there and to be there still.

 

Clara had even talked about searching missing persons reports.

 

Lauren shuddered, reaching out to pat Camila’s hair. She didn’t like the idea.

 

If Camila was missing it meant someone was missing her. If someone was missing her, they were looking, they wanted her back.

 

Camila was for Lauren and Lauren didn’t want anyone else to have Camila back. Lauren needed her. Camila had said she was Lauren’s and it was only fair.

 

She traced her fingers down Camila’s bare neck, apologetic. “I’m sorry she’s like that. She’s always like that. She should like you—you’re awesome.”

 

“And pretty and cute,” Camila agreed, staring at the ceiling with faked disinterest. Lauren’s lips twitched upward. She didn’t disagree.

 

Camila had made breakfast. Two bowls of cereal were sitting on the kitchen table. When Lauren checked, the cats that usually waited on the porch had been fed as well and were joyfully digging through the entire ten pound bag of cat food Camila had given them.

 

Silly affection swelled in Lauren’s chest. She sat at the table, kicking Camila’s ankle lightly when Camila busied herself with sorting marshmallows from her cereal into color groups. Camila murmured and nudged Lauren’s foot with her own.

 

Halfway through their meal the phone started to ring again.

 

“My God,” Lauren muttered. “Can’t she leave us alone?”

 

Camila looked half disturbed and half curious at the noise. Sighing, Lauren got up to unplug the phone from the wall, silencing it. She could still hear the irritating ringing from the phones in the rest of the house, itching at the back of her mind, annoying and uncomfortable.

 

Camila looked less disturbed by the noise than she usually would have, maybe because Lauren was more disturbed by it.

 

“Why did you answer the phone, before?” Lauren asked after a moment. She’d never seen Camila talk on the phone. She certainly didn’t seem to like them.

 

“It was making noise,” Camila explained from behind a mouthful of blue and pink marshmallows. “You were asleep.”

 

“Because it’s early. It’s too early to be awake,” Lauren frowned. “Why were you up, anyway?”

 

Worry tingled in Lauren’s head, uncertainty that was only worsened by the constant ringing of the phone, Clara’s questions on the other end. She shifted in her seat, fighting the irrational urge to hold on to Camila like Camila used to hold on to her.

 

“It’s noon,” Camila explained, flicking a piece of cereal that was not a marshmallow at Lauren’s forehead.

 

Lauren simply nodded, because, while Camila had been sticking to a more consistent schedule lately, she was still free to decide what day and time it was if she wanted to. If Camila wanted it to be noon, Lauren didn’t mind.

 

Then she looked at the clock.

 

“Oh crap,” said Lauren. “It’s noon.”

—–

Lauren’s boss was not pleased. Really, Lauren didn’t know why the man expected more out of her.

 

Normani was even less pleased at Lauren being late, mostly because she’d had to actually serve a customer.

 

“And then,” she said, waving a finger at Lauren without actually looking at her, her nose still buried in her magazine, “then he said he’d ordered decaf!  _Decaf_. Who does that?”

 

“Uh huh,” said Lauren, staring out the open door of the cafe. The sky was blue and empty today. If Camila went chasing the stars, Lauren wondered how long she’d be gone.

 

Lauren was nervous without Camila beside her. Camila’s presence was always calming. When she wasn’t there to calm her, Lauren worried. She’d never worried so much before she met Camila. She’d never had anything to lose before she met Camila.

 

Lauren didn’t like having Camila out of her sight in case Camila never came back into it.

 

Clara’s abrupt entrance into her life was no help. She had so many questions, suffocating expectation, and Lauren didn’t have the answers.

 

She wasn’t sure what Camila was thinking lately either, her odd insistence that Lauren make a different friend.

 

“Lauren,” Normani said, her tone annoyed. “I had to make two coffees.  _Two_. For the same guy!”

 

Camila hadn’t wandered in a long time. She hadn’t left for more than a day. She had a bed, she had a home, her cat curled up in the laundry basket and Lauren waiting for her. She still chased the stars, still sat on the roof, but she always came back, she was always Lauren’s.

 

Lauren didn’t know what she’d do if that was changing.

 

“Lauren!” Normani said, hitting her with her magazine. “We’re complaining about customers here.”

 

“Yeah.” Lauren shook the thoughts from her head. “Customers. Yeah. Bane of my existence. Starbucks is down the street. No, we don’t have sugar free sweetener, but there’s dirt in the planter.”

 

Normani looked unimpressed. She smoothed the cover of her magazine from its encounter with Lauren’s arm. “What’s up with you? That wasn’t nearly impassioned enough.”

 

Lauren sighed and stared at her hands.

 

Somehow, Normani interpreted this as an invitation to start a conversation about her personal life.

 

“Wait,” she said, grinning. “It’s a guy, right?”

 

Lauren gave her a dubious look. “No.”

 

“I knew it would happen one day,” Normani went on, as apparently ‘no’ actually meant ‘Yes, ask me about it!’ Lauren scoffed but Normani was undeterred. “Don’t look at me like that, I know these things. Besides, you’ve been missing work a lot lately, Jauregui. And when you do come, your mind is somewhere else.”

 

Lauren started playing with her apron.

 

“Shut up,” she muttered halfheartedly.

 

“You met someone.” Normani laughed. “ _You_. You hardly ever leave that house. You won’t even go out to lunch with me!”

 

Lauren grumbled but said nothing. It was true, after all.

 

“What’s he like?” Normani asked, leaning her hip against the counter and looking more interested in Lauren than she had in the last year they’d worked together. “Hot?”

 

“Insane,” Lauren responded, thinking of Camila. Sitting on the roof with Camila, trying to climb a tree just to be among the leaves. Camila and her charm, her mystique, her ability to be completely baffling and comforting at the same time. “Aggravating. Confusing. Magic. Perfect.”

 

“No one is perfect,” Normani disagreed.

 

“Camila is.”

 

Normani raised an eyebrow. “ _Camila_? Like the girls’ name Camila?”

 

Lauren shook her head, suppressing an incredulous laugh. “Believe me, that’s the least of my problems.”

 

“Oh.” Normani frowned, cocking her head. She looked like she was considering putting down her magazine but didn’t. “So, what’s the problem then?”

 

Sometimes Lauren wondered that too.

 

“She’s not your average girl.” Camila was a lot of things. Average certainly wasn’t one of them.

 

“What’s wrong with her?” Normani asked.

 

Lauren sighed.

—–

Clara had said it, Normani had. Neither of them knew Camila, but still, it planted the thought in Lauren’s head and she couldn’t get rid of it.

 

Was there really something wrong with Camila? Everyone else seemed to think so.

 

Camila was different. Lauren liked different, she’d never liked normal and so it made sense. Camila was special, she thought in new ways and talked in odd rhythms. She wasn’t easy to understand and she didn’t understand things most people might.

 

Lauren understood Camila. Camila understood her. It was just different.

 

Lauren had never really thought of there being something wrong with Camila, not in the way her mother said the words. She thought Camila was sort of crazy, still thought that. But _wrong_ , like maybe there was something missing in Camila’s head, Lauren had always seen Camila as having too much rather than not enough. She figured that Camila had a head of so many thoughts and ideas and words and songs that she just couldn’t always find the right ones, got confused or distracted. Lauren had never considered that maybe there weren’t enough thoughts there to being with.

 

She wondered if all along when she was seeing different, magic, special, if anyone else would have just seen someone smaller than themselves, below them.

 

Lauren felt more inadequate herself, when Camila understood so much, so many different things, and Lauren didn’t. The stars never spoke to Lauren, she couldn’t see the trees growing in the garden.

 

How could something be wrong with Camila when it was everyone else seeing the world in flat, lifeless grays, and Camila was seeing it through a kaleidoscope?

 

If there was something wrong with any of them, something missing, something small, Lauren thought it had to be her.

 

But Clara’s questions still echoed in Lauren’s head, her doubts, louder and louder. Why and where and how.

 

The thought lingered.

—–

Camila was standing under the garage light, gazing up into its yellow glow when Lauren drove up.

 

“Hello, light,” she greeted as Lauren got out of the car. “Hello, stars. Hello, sky. Hello, monsters and aliens and pretty green leaf.”

 

Camila reached up to touch a leaf of ivy and Lauren moved behind her, wrapping her hand around Camila’s arm to catch her wandering attention. “Hello, Camila.”

 

Camila tilted her head back. “Hello, Lauren.”

 

A smile graced Lauren’s lips, the first one since she’d last seen Camila. Camila’s eyes were large and curious in the dying light, dancing and happy. She didn’t look far away like she usually did before she went wandering. She didn’t look like she was leaving Lauren. Lauren gave a sigh of relief.

 

“You didn’t leave,” she mumbled, grabbing Camila’s hand, standing under the light with her.

 

“Why would I go?” Camila wondered, eyes flicking from the beloved leaf of ivy to Lauren’s face. “Are we going somewhere?”

 

They were still a ‘we,’ Lauren comforted herself. Maybe Camila’s insistence that Lauren make another friend had been nothing, a whim.

 

Camila was smiling at her now, a look that was quietly knowing, though Lauren wasn’t sure what exactly Camila knew. Swinging Lauren’s hand in hers, Camila only said, “Don’t worry.”

 

Lauren did worry. She worried and she wondered. Lauren wondered if wherever Camila had come from, if one day she’d simply gotten in a wandering mood, followed the stars, and never come back.

 

Lauren wondered if someone like herself was waiting, sitting in their cold, Camila-less house and counting the seconds, counting the cobwebs, counting the raindrops. Waiting for Camila.

 

“I wonder where you were, you know, before you came here,” Lauren said, tucking Camila’s hair behind her ear in the shadowed light.

 

Camila tilted her head into Lauren’s touch, making a small sound like a purring cat. She didn’t say anything and Lauren didn’t expect her to. When Lauren pulled her hand away, though, Camila met her eyes.

 

“I was somewhere else,” she said, leaning towards Lauren, probably in hopes Lauren would return the touch. “Now I’m here.”

 

It should have been a good enough answer. It used to be. Camila was there, with Lauren, and it should have been good enough.

 

Clara’s questions echoed in Lauren’s head, all the curious things she didn’t understand.

 

“Lolo.” Camila tapped Lauren’s arm to get her attention. She looked at Lauren with honest, open eyes. “Now I’m here.”

 

“I know you are,” Lauren said. “I just don’t know where you were before.”

 

Camila sighed. She looked entirely unimpressed with Lauren and her preoccupation. Turning her attention back to the ivy, Camila whispered conspiring things to it. Lauren was sure she heard her name in there somewhere, probably accompanied by a dramatic roll of Camila’s eyes.

 

Shaking her head, Lauren tugged on Camila’s hand. “Let’s go inside. Which movie do you want tonight?”

 

“Oh,” said Camila, not looking away from the ivy. “I’m not supposed to.”

 

Lauren blinked. “You’re not supposed to what?”

 

“Yes,” agreed Camila.

 

That hadn’t changed, Lauren mused. Camila was still as frustrating, as confusing, and as mysterious as always. Lauren still felt foolishly affectionate of her, the way Camila was, even when the questions were lingering in her head.

 

“Let’s go inside anyway,” she said, resting her hand on Camila’s back to lead her away from the plants she was growing overly fond of.

 

Camila allowed herself to be led docilely, but when they reached the front door she stopped short.

 

“I’m not supposed to be in the house,” Camila said, looking apprehensive. “The phone will be upset.”

 

“The phone,” Lauren repeated. “You answered the phone again?”

 

“We’re going to be friends,” Camila said, sounded assured of herself even though the phone had apparently kicked her out of the house.

 

Lauren’s mother had kicked her out of the house.

 

Lauren groaned. “Oh God, Camz,” she said, cupping Camila’s face with her hands. “We have to talk about this thing where you keep speaking to my mother, it’s just not good. She’s the witch, remember?”

 

If Lauren could just remember that Clara was the witch for herself, things would have been a lot easier.

 

“She could be a good witch,” Camila insisted, ever the optimist. She nuzzled Lauren’s hand on her cheek and Lauren stepped back.

 

“She’s not good,” she said. A fire inside her was quietly fuming. She shouldn’t have expected more from her, but still, still, Lauren hated the thought of Clara getting to Camila, getting anywhere near Camila.

 

A cold wind fluttered past and Camila shivered. She wasn’t wearing shoes, her shoulders bare in a black tank top. Lauren resisted the urge to pull Camila into a warming hug and instead took her hand, tugging her towards the door again.

 

Camila looked uncertain. “It’s not my house. The phone said, I think it’s not… Are we lost, Lolo?”

 

Lauren stomach swirled, cold and dizzying. She did wonder, sometimes, if Camila was lost.

 

Even if she was, she was still home.

 

“This is your house,” Lauren told her firmly, opening the door for them. The light was on in the hall, reflecting warmly, a contrast to the night. “Your home. It’s always going to be yours, and no one has the right to kick you out. You belong here, with me, okay?”

 

As much as Lauren worried and wondered about Camila, she knew that would always be true.

 

With an odd hesitance, Camila took Lauren’s hand. She allowed herself to be led over the threshold and Lauren squeezed her fingers, knowing this was right, if nothing else. “I don’t know where you came from, but I know you belong here.”


	24. Chasing Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

Every day they planted a seed in a garden that would not grow.

 

From magazine clippings to kitchen utensils to guitar strings. The shoelace off a single converse, still missing its other. The trimming of a strand of Lauren’s hair. Lauren was unsure what Camila was intending to grow with that – another Lauren?

 

Camila watched over her beloved seeds, watering them with fizzy soda and reading them stories from upside down textbooks. She wasn’t discouraged when they didn’t grow. Camila would be perfectly happy with them however they were.

 

Lauren wasn’t so patient. She desperately wished something in the garden would grow. A guitar tree, a Lauren tree, a scraggly weed, anything. It shouldn’t have mattered; she didn’t know what it would mean if something did grow. Camila would have known the meaning behind it, Lauren was sure.

 

Once, Camila had said she wanted to plant roses. They hadn’t. Of all the seeds beneath the earth, none were for actual plants.

 

Staring at the bare patch of dirt, Lauren decided it was time to change that.

 

“What will grow?” Camila wanted to know as they spread the tiny rose seeds through the earth. “Something shiny?”

 

Having read the directions on the seed packets very carefully, Lauren meticulously placed each seed half an inch below the surface, while Camila scattered them about gleefully. They would all wash away with the sprinklers but Camila looked happy, dirt on her cheek and eyes shining in the sun.

 

Lauren buried the last seed beneath the surface and flicked the dirt off Camila’s cheek. “You’ll see,” she teased.

 

Camila blinked.

—–

Camila was watching her.

 

It was creeping Lauren out a little, if she was honest.

 

Every time she turned around a corner there were wide, curious brown eyes waiting for her. Having Camila stare at you was like having someone look through your soul. Lauren wasn’t sure what Camila was seeing but it was apparently very,  _very_  interesting.

 

Camila watched her, completely unsubtly, from over the top of a book. She stared at Lauren while eating their meals, so intent that Camila kept stabbing herself with her spoon. Camila watched Lauren while they watched television and Camila watched her when they played video games, resulting in many unsatisfying wins on Lauren’s part.

 

While Camila had always been focused on Lauren, interested like Lauren was actually interesting, this was different. Camila was looking inside of her, at everything Lauren couldn’t even see herself.

 

When Lauren caught Camila staring at her as they lay on the roof to watch the stars, she finally returned the gaze.

 

“This is really kind of weird, just so you know,” Lauren told her, staring into Camila’s eyes while Camila was staring back. Camila twitched an eyebrow. Lauren widened her eyes comically. Camila imitated the motion.

 

Chuckling, Lauren looked away first. “What are you doing, anyway?”

 

“Watching,” Camila responded simply, leaning back on her elbows to watch the sky, but Lauren didn’t miss the fact that Camila was still focused solely on her.

 

She leaned back next to Camila, covering Camila’s hand with hers on the slates of the roof. “Well, that explains it.”

 

Camila nodded like it actually did. She tilted her head back, exposing her neck and closing her eyes, absolutely blissful. Lauren turned towards her to better see Camila’s tongue flick against her lips, her eyelashes spread against her cheeks.

 

She didn’t miss the fact that with Camila’s eyes closed, Lauren was now the one that was staring. Rather creepily, too, for how much she felt mesmerized by the angles of Camila’s face.

 

It wasn’t Lauren’s fault how sweet Camila’s face was, how much her cheek begged to be stroked or her ear to be tickled so Camila would cackle in her funny laugh. Lauren considered doing it then, just to hear Camila squeal with surprise, but it would have been unsafe on the roof. Camila tended to flail.

 

Besides, Camila looked so serene, it would have been wrong to disturb her.

 

Feeling calmed by Camila’s quiet peacefulness, Lauren leaned back and closed her own eyes.

 

Somewhere below them she could hear, through an open window, the constant ringing of the telephone.

—–

Sometimes, Lauren considered quitting her job, taking Camila, and running away to a private island where they could be rock stars for all the island creatures. Camila would like that. She’d be able to see the stars better without the Los Angeles smog and there would be more trees than in the city, too.

 

There would be no one to bother them, no neighbors, no mother and no memories of things lost.

 

Camila could even bring her cat.

 

It was a flawless plan, really. If Lauren was a hero in a fairytale, she’d live on an island with the princess.

 

“You’ve redecorated the castle,” Lauren observed as she toed off her shoes, leaving them and her discarded work apron by the door.

 

Camila had apparently hidden the telephone under a pile of cushions, newspapers, and a potted plant. It wasn’t exactly inconspicuous, especially since the phone was still plugged into the wall.

 

At least it wasn’t ringing.

 

“Lolo!” Camila cried, recklessly throwing herself into Lauren’s arms. Lauren caught her, used to Camila’s enthusiastic greetings. Camila was not a fan of Lauren leaving her, for any reason. Ever.

 

This was why life on an island would have been perfect for them.

 

“Hey,” Lauren said, running her fingers through Camila’s hair. “Miss me?”

 

“Yes,” Camila said, just as she did every time Lauren asked the question, even when they’d only been split long enough for a shower.

 

It was a familiar scene, Camila greeting her like she did, missing her when Lauren was gone, and Lauren’s lips tingled in memory.

 

Camila touched her cheek and Lauren pulled back.

 

“I like how you’ve redecorated, very practical,” Lauren said, trying to ignore it when Camila looked disappointed. She failed, as Camila’s unhappiness and pouting lips were impossible to ignore, and hesitantly added, “I missed you too?”

 

Camila brightened considerably. She eyed the pile of household items set on top of the phone a little guiltily, biting her lip and glancing at Lauren from under her eyelashes. “The phone decided to leave. It was not my decision.”

 

Lauren’s lip twitched upwards and she patted Camila consolingly on the shoulder. “It’s okay. You don’t have to like her. I don’t even like her.”

 

Clara didn’t deserve Camila’s attention anyway. Camila tried too hard, cared too much, and got too attached. Lauren didn’t want to see her try to do that with Clara – or with the phone, as Camila saw it. She didn’t want Camila to be hurt.

 

“She thinks I’m all wrong,” Camila said. She sounded bewildered that her new friend had not succumbed to her charm.

 

“I know.” Lauren shook her head disbelievingly. “She thinks you’re… She stopped by the cafe today to give me the business card to some doctor.”

 

When Lauren had worked up the outrage to inform her mother that Camila was  _not_  leaving, Clara had insisted that she was simply concerned. Not about the house, or about Lauren, but about  _Camila_  and what she was doing in the house, with Lauren. She’d even been kind enough to stop by her work to talk about Camila, because she cared so much.

 

Lauren wasn’t fooled. Lauren wanted her mother to return to Miami.

 

Her mother’s unusual, sudden interest in Camila was in no way innocent. Whatever the reason was, it sure as hell wasn’t concern.

 

Maybe Clara was just pissed that there was yet another person living in her mother’s house and it still wasn’t her. Maybe she was bored like Mrs. Smith, nothing better to do than make Lauren’s life miserable. Maybe she needed a hobby.

 

Maybe she should introduce her to knitting.

 

Camila eyed the business card in Lauren’s hand and Lauren waved it for her to see, white stock paper with a name, a number, and the grinning face of a balding, gray haired man.

 

He looked like a jerk. Camila wouldn’t have liked him at all, Lauren told herself. Camila would have thought he was boring. Camila would have rather talked to the ceiling than the grinning man. What did he have to grin about, anyway? Suspicious, all of it.

 

Lauren crumpled the doctor’s card in her hand. “It doesn’t matter,” she said when Camila gave her a questioning look. “She doesn’t know.”

 

This brought a pleased smile to Camila’s face. She looked proud, and Lauren glanced down, fighting the guilt that clenched her chest.

 

Clara didn’t know, but Lauren couldn’t help thinking that she didn’t know much, either. All the questions still swirling in her head. If she could just answer them, everything would be right. She could be whatever Camila so clearly wanted, needed, and Lauren wouldn’t have to worry, because she’d know all the answers.

 

But there were none.

 

She threw the card away.

 

Camila got it back out of the trash and put it with the tinfoil centerpiece on their kitchen table.

 

The grinning man and his doctorate sat there, silently mocking.

—–

Lauren woke to the sound of soft breathing. Her curtains were drawn, no light seeping in, the room dark. Red numbers on a hated alarm clock read just past 2 AM.

 

“Good morning,” Camila said cheerfully from the darkness.

 

Lauren groaned into her pillow. “It’s not morning. What are you doing, Camila?”

 

Rolling over, Lauren squinted into the darkness, trying to place Camila in her room. Sleepiness fogged her mind and Lauren resisted the urge to just give in, invite Camila into the bed like she knew Camila wanted, and go back to sleep with arms wrapped crushingly around her.

 

Instead, she turned on the old lamp sitting on her bedside table, illuminating the room and Camila’s wide smile.

 

Still dressed in Lauren’s pajamas, Camila sat in a cheerful little huddle a foot away from the bed. She offered no explanation for why she was there, as Camila never really offered explanations.

 

“Let me guess,” Lauren said, sitting up. “You’re watching me. In the dark.”

 

Camila nodded.

 

“Can you see me in the dark?”

 

Camila shook her head, unperturbed by this minor detail.

 

Lauren sighed, crushing down any ridiculous affection she felt. There was no room for affection at two in the morning. It just wasn’t right. “Morning people are an anomaly, they’re practically inhuman. It’s just not right, Camila. Isn’t watching me when we’re awake enough?”

 

Silence filled the room. Camila stared with wide, curious brown eyes.

 

Lauren snorted a laugh. “Really, my face is not that interesting. What is it?”

 

“I like your face,” Camila told her serenely.

 

She was sitting on the floor with her knees to her chest, watching Lauren intently and with clear interest. Lauren didn’t know what could possibly be so interesting about herself that Camila got the urge to go visit it in the middle of the night, but her affection for Camila won out over her common sense anyway.

 

Camila looked too lonely sitting by herself. With a long suffering sigh, Lauren crawled from her warm bed to sit at Camila’s side. Pulling her own knees to her chest, she glanced at Camila cautiously. “Nightmares?” she asked.

 

Sometimes Lauren woke in the middle of the night, for no apparent reason, and came to Camila’s room to hear quiet noises of muffled terror, whines of irritation as Camila struggled against the sheets.

 

Camila didn’t look upset tonight, though, and she ignored the question as she often did when a topic didn’t interest her.

 

“I was cold,” she said, resting her temple against one knee. She watched Lauren, sideways. “And then you were here, so I wasn’t anymore.”

 

Lauren was sure Camila’s insistence that she got cold sleeping alone was only a thinly veiled ploy to get what she wanted. Absolutely, entirely, completely sure. Camila pouted and Lauren still felt bad denying her anything. “Do you want the heater on? Or a blanket? I’ll get you a blanket.”

 

She moved to stand but Camila wrapped a hand around her wrist, insistent. “No, I’d rather have you.”

 

Lauren swallowed thickly and pulled her hand away. No matter what she did with Camila, pulling her close or pushing her away, it didn’t seem to be the right thing. “I’ll get you a blanket instead.”

 

“I’m not cold,” Camila told her. “I’m  _cold_.”

 

It clearly made perfect sense to Camila and maybe it did to Lauren too, but Lauren still couldn’t do anything. She shook her head, not meeting Camila’s intent gaze. “I can’t… It hasn’t changed, Camz. We’re not like that.”

 

“Everything’s changing,” Camila said, twirling a lock of hair around her finger as she watched Lauren. “Don’t be scared.”

 

“I’m not scared,” Lauren responded, a token protest. “And nothing is changing. I mean that.”

 

“You are and it is.” Camila’s eyes were clear and intense, more in the moment than Lauren almost ever saw her. “It has to. Our souls belong together, you know. It’s not right to keep them apart.”

 

“Because we’re soul mates,” Lauren said, sighing. She knew the way Camila saw it by now, knew she couldn’t change Camila’s mind. “And my soul loves yours. I know.”

 

A quiet smile graced Camila’s face. “Your soul loves mine, and I love you.”

 

Lauren hadn’t been expecting that. Maybe she should have, but she hadn’t been.

 

“You love me,” she repeated weakly.

 

Camila stared. She didn’t say it again and Lauren was relieved. Those weren’t words Camila was supposed to say, even if it had been there, even if Lauren had been seeing it and playing blind the whole time.

 

Camila, who thought Lauren was someone, who thought Lauren was everyone. Magical, special, crazy and wonderful Camila.

 

“You can’t,” Lauren said, shaking her head. “You can’t love me. It’s just… No. I’m sorry. You can’t, you don’t.”

 

“Why not?” Camila asked. She looked crushed. Lauren didn’t want her to be, Lauren didn’t want Camila to be anything but safe and happy and content. But Camila, Camila just couldn’t.

 

“I can’t… I don’t know anything,” Lauren explained helplessly. “I don’t even know your last name. Your family, where you grew up, why you talk to the ceiling or why you lived where you did or who Michael is or…” she trailed off, almost surprised at the scope of information she was missing. “My mother thinks you’re a missing person and I can’t even tell her you’re not because I don’t know.”

 

Mostly, Lauren didn’t know. She never knew much with Camila. She never knew much without Camila, either.

 

Camila looked down, eyeing the carpet as if it was fascinating. Camila did find the strangest things interesting, but Lauren didn’t think that was the case now.

 

“Would you love me if you knew?”

 

Lauren winced, her throat tight. She never wanted to hurt Camila. She’d done it before, stupid and unknowing, and she didn’t want to do it again.

 

She didn’t want to, but she didn’t know any other way, either.

 

“Camz…” he said, reaching for Camila’s shoulder and pulling back, reaching again. “I just… I don’t think you know what you want. You don’t… You don’t love me, right? You don’t.”

 

Camila pulled away from Lauren’s touch, the first time she’d ever pulled away, her eyes glassy.

 

“Sometimes when I look in the mirror I don’t know who I’m looking at. I wake up when I haven’t been sleeping and I can’t remember my name,” Camila said, staring at Lauren with the same wide eyes. “I always remember yours, though.”

 

Lauren swallowed thickly, a feeling like cold, heavy stones in the bottom of her stomach. “Camz…”

 

“You’re my Lolo,” Camila said. “I know you’re my soul mate. I know.”

 

Camila met Lauren’s gaze for a moment, her brown eyes surprisingly dry. She didn’t wait for Lauren’s response, and Lauren didn’t know what her response would have been.

 

Camila reached out and turned the light off, sending the room back into pitch black. She pulled away, her footsteps faded, the door clicked shut.

 

Lauren sat in the dark, thinking.

—–

There was no light. When Camila wasn’t there, there was no light.

 

There hadn’t been light before Camila had dropped into Lauren’s life, either. She just hadn’t known it. She hadn’t known because she hadn’t been looking. There was nothing to see, and so it was okay that it was dark.

 

Everything had changed so much since then. Lauren couldn’t even remember what it was like to be without Camila.

 

Things were still changing, Camila had said.

 

Lauren didn’t know where anything was going, like the song she played for Camila on her guitar. It all came together in a mass of noise and strings and colors and feeling, but Lauren didn’t know what any of it meant without Camila’s words.

 

Sitting in the dark, no sudden epiphany came to her, even as she waited for it. She still didn’t know.

 

It was dark and Camila loved her.

—–

It was dark until the light came back.

 

She came back dressed in her beloved sweatshirt, stars and shapes and colors. Converse and bow and silky hair.

 

Lauren was still sitting on the floor. She stared up at Camila who glided past her, ethereal and magic. She drew the curtains back to a sunrise in bright colors that reflected off her face.

 

“Hi,” said Lauren, voice hoarse.

 

Camila gave her a soft smile, almost pitying. She folded down at Lauren’s side to sit in the same place she had been hours before –moments before? – lifting a foot to kick at Lauren’s.

 

“Come,” Camila said, tugging on the sleeve of Lauren’s sleep shirt. “We’re going to chase the stars, now.”

 

Lauren rubbed a hand across her eyes, adjusting to the light. “Chase the stars?”

 

It was something Camila did, occasionally. She’d disappear for a few hours, sometimes a whole day, and when she came back and Lauren fussed over her, Camila would say she’d been chasing the stars. Lauren accepted that because that was who Camila was, but she didn’t really know what it meant.

 

Camila yanked on her arm harder, insistent as she always was, and when Lauren looked up Camila’s expression was stubborn, her jaw set.

 

They were going to chase the stars whether she went willingly or not. Lauren went willingly.

 

“Keep your sweatshirt,” she said, standing. “You’ll get cold.”

 

“I won’t be cold.” Camila took Lauren’s hand.

 

They walked. Camila led her and Lauren followed. She didn’t mind it. She didn’t care how far they walked as long as Camila was beside her.

 

“Not mad at me?” Lauren asked, kicking a pebble along and peering at Camila out of the corner of her eye. Camila kicked the pebble the next step. She didn’t look angry.

 

It didn’t feel weird to be in Camila’s presence now, not awkward or uncomfortable like it might have been. Lauren just worried, like she always did, if Camila was okay, if Camila was still hers to keep.

 

Camila loved her and it wasn’t any different than it had been.

 

Camila’s hand found its way to Lauren’s cheek, giving a gentle caress. “Lolo.”

 

And that was it.

 

They walked on suburban streets, paved sidewalks and cars rumbling by. Lauren had expected chasing stars to involve a lot more, well, stars.

 

She expected a mythical journey worthy of Camila’s imagination, Camila’s own magic.

 

That wasn’t how it turned out. Things never quite turned out how Lauren expected them to. Perhaps she should stop expecting things at all, Lauren mused as they stopped at a house like all the others.

 

“This doesn’t look like the sky,” Lauren said, standing in front of a house that was not unlike her own. The lawn was green and perfectly square, the curtains open and lights on inside. The address was painted in clear block numbers by the street, an SUV in the driveway.

 

Normal. Normally odd. Something about the house, maybe just that Camila had brought her here, made Lauren uncomfortable. She shifted closer to Camila.

 

“I think it is,” Camila said. She sounded uncertain. It was a tone Lauren wasn’t used to, Camila was always so sure about everything, even when she was wrong. She tugged at the fraying sleeve of Lauren’s sweatshirt, glancing over when she noticed Lauren looking at her. “I think… yes?”

 

“The house.” Lauren pointed to confirm. “This is where you go when you chase the stars?”

 

“Yes,” Camila said, sounding more assured, at least of that. “The lights go on. There is a window. A man – and stars,” Camila trailed off, looking not completely sure but always determined.

 

Lauren glanced at the house, not seeing anyone now. “Who’s the man?”

 

“I don’t know,” Camila admitted, biting her lip. Her fingers trailed from the sleeve to Lauren’s hand and Lauren held on. Camila squeezed, giving her a look that she couldn’t quite decipher. “I think he would know if you asked him.”

 

“You don’t know,” Lauren repeated. “He’s not your friend? You don’t talk to him?”

 

This got Lauren an odd look, like Camila couldn’t fathom the idea of interacting with… whoever lived in the house.

 

So, when Camila chased the stars, she came to this house, only blocks away from Lauren’s, and stood outside a dark window, watching a shadow move. And thinking of the sky.

 

It was… Lauren’s chest clenched punishingly around her lungs, drawing air from her lips.

 

This wasn’t Camila’s fairytale. This wasn’t good enough to be Camila’s fairytale. This was a house with an SUV and weeds in the planter.

 

“Do you want to go home?” Lauren asked, her throat dry. She tugged at Camila’s hand, taking a step back from the intimidating picket fence. “Let’s go home.”

 

Camila took a step forward. She said nothing, only focusing knowing eyes, the same familiar stare, on Lauren’s face. Lauren followed reluctantly as Camila led her up to the front step of the house. “I think he would know if you asked him,” Camila repeated.

 

He would know. Answers, Lauren realized. All of the answers, inside of this house. Maybe she could have them. Maybe, Camila wanted her to have them.

 

Camila watched as Lauren knocked on the door.


	25. Shadows of a Past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

No one came to the door.

 

Lauren and Camila stood before it, silent on the doorstep, waiting. Waiting for something. Lauren didn’t know exactly what. She didn’t think Camila knew either, but still, they waited, breathing in unison. Anxiety fluttered through Lauren’s veins.

 

“No one’s going to answer,” she said finally, her shoulders slumping, either in relief or disappointment.

 

There might be something they needed inside the house, something Camila needed. She must have known this place. It felt like a familiar place. Not familiar to Lauren, but familiar to Camila, like Lauren could feel it through her.

 

Lauren shook her head, stepping back from the door. Maybe she’d just started thinking like Camila after spending so much time with her.

 

“Do you remember this place?” Lauren asked. She turned to where Camila had been standing at her side a moment before and found only air. “…Camila?”

 

Suddenly, Lauren was alone on the doorstep of the eerie house.

 

She shuffled back, nearly tripping with her own shoelaces. It wasn’t that Lauren was scared of the house or what was inside it, it was just… she had to find Camila.

 

Calling Camila’s name softly, as if she might disturb the person who was apparently not home, Lauren checked the obvious places – in the tree by the side of the house, on the sidewalk next to the trashcans, by the garden befriending the weeds.

 

Camila was nowhere to be seen. Lauren’s heart caught in her chest. She looked around at the bare front yard, anxious.

 

The house couldn’t take Camila away from her. She couldn’t lose Camila again just when she’d been about to get the answers to all her questions. There was no point in finding out about Camila’s past if Camila wasn’t there in the present.

 

It was just a house.

 

A hand clenched around Lauren’s wrist and Lauren yelped.

 

Camila watched with calm brown eyes and Lauren sighed, tension releasing from her shoulders immediately. She slung her free arm around Camila’s waist, pulling her closer for a short moment. “Don’t leave me like that,” Lauren admonished.

 

“You have it backwards,” Camila told her. When she smiled it didn’t look happy.

 

“What?” Lauren asked, furrowing her eyebrows worriedly. Camila ignored her question as Camila often did.

 

“Come on,” Camila said instead, bumping her nose against Lauren’s cheek before dragging Lauren after her. She led Lauren down the side of the house, past an open fence.

 

It reminded her of the place Camila had lived, crawling through a hole in the fence, crawling through a window to a condemned building where she slept.

 

A shiver struck Lauren at the thought, the person who she had come to care for more than anything, living in that place by herself.

 

It only made Lauren dislike this house more.

 

They stopped at a high window. Camila poked the screen with a testing finger, looking to Lauren proudly.

 

“No,” Lauren said immediately. “No. Nope. Bad idea.”

 

The glass pane of the window was open, only a screen and a small jump keeping them out of the house. Camila tugged at the edge of the screen.

 

“Camila,” Lauren protested, embarrassed to find her voice came out high and whiney. She wrapped her hand around Camila’s arm to stop her when Camila tugged harder on the screen. “You can’t just go crawling through people’s windows.”

 

Camila pulled the screen out of the window one-handed. “I can, though,” she pointed out as Lauren stared.

 

“That was way too easy for you,” Lauren said, frowning. The screen lay innocently at her feet. It seemed confused at the turn of events as well.

 

Pulling out of Lauren’s hold, Camila crawled through the window and disappeared from view.

 

“Crap,” Lauren muttered, and then immediately crawled into the house herself. She was prepared to scramble after Camila but when she came through the window Camila was standing right in front of her, waiting patiently.

 

Lauren sighed. “You’re a bad influence.”

 

“You like it,” Camila said.

 

It may have been true.

 

The room they were in was small and cramped, dark even as the sun was rising. It was a laundry room, a pile of neatly folded clothes on the ground. Lauren toppled it over with her shoe.

 

“This is crazy,” she said to herself, as Camila would have had no concern for the craziness of crawling into a stranger’s home.

 

Camila was already slipping out of the room.

 

“Hey, wait!”

 

Camila moved down the hall, touching things with a wandering curiosity, tilting her head all around to see each mundane, magical thing.

 

It felt weird to be in someone’s house without their knowing it. Lauren did her best to creep in her boots, frustratingly only causing them to squeak louder with each step.

 

The floors were hardwood, the walls were all white. The house felt cold and vast, like her grandmother’s house had felt before Camila had settled into it with her color and warmth.

 

Camila moved down the hall to the room closest to the front of the house. Lauren could see the other side of the door they’d been standing in front of, waiting for it to open.

 

The front room was the one with the window. A single lamp was placed against the far wall, the perfect position to cast shadows to watch from the street. The only shadows wandering the room now were Lauren and Camila.

 

The lamp was on.

 

Someone must have been home if the lamp was on.

 

“Hello?” Lauren called dumbly into the house. Her voice didn’t echo like she imagined it should have.

 

“Hello,” said Camila, showing up at Lauren’s shoulder.

 

Shaking her head fondly, Lauren patted Camila on the arm. Camila simply watched her expectantly. Lauren chuckled. “Hi, Camz. Nice to see you again.”

 

This earned her a smile, Camila tugging Lauren’s hair gently just like she did when Lauren greeted the toaster or when Lauren complimented Elvis on his new lion-reminiscent hairstyle.

 

“I don’t think we should be in here,” Lauren said, looking around the room cautiously. “In fact, I know we shouldn’t be in here. Trespassing, you know?”

 

Camila looked at her blankly.

 

“Right,” said Lauren. “Of course.”

 

No silly little laws would ever dream of deterring Camila from what she wanted to do. Even if what she wanted to do was break into someone’s house – much too easily, Lauren thought – to wander around and… read their books.

 

Camila had picked up a heavy book from the coffee table and had it open in her arms, the look on her face spellbound.

 

“Now doesn’t seem like a good time to read,” Lauren said, tugging at the corner of a page. Camila made a noise that suggested annoyance and turned the page.

 

This was all much, much too crazy. Lauren went with it anyway.

 

Looking at the book, she realized why Camila was distracted by it.

 

Stars. Pages and pages of pictures of stars. Graphs, maps, diagrams, and so many pictures of the lit up sky. The book even gripped Lauren, her heart beating heavily in her chest as Camila flipped a page.

 

“What is that?” she wondered, reaching out to half close the book to look at its cover. It was an astronomy textbook, she noted.

 

Camila made a clear noise of complaint and Lauren retracted her hand so Camila could open the book all the way again. Looking around the room, all of the books scattered about appeared to be on astronomy.

 

The room was Camila’s heaven, Lauren realized as she examined another shelf full of books.

 

Maybe that was why they were here. Whoever lived here must have been just as fascinated with the solar system as Camila was. There were papers scattered around as well, lecture notes and a thick pile of what looked like essays. A teacher? Lauren wondered.

 

It was creepy, weird, and just plain wrong to be sneaking around someone’s house like this. Lauren couldn’t help herself. Camila had brought her here, Camila thought it was okay for them to be here, and Lauren trusted Camila even when they were doing something crazy.

 

They were always doing something crazy, really. This was just a little higher on the scale than usual.

 

She looked around the room with voyeuristic curiosity. The decoration was plain, a slate wiped blank. There were no paintings, but hanging on one wall was a grouping of three photos. Lauren stepped up to them, examining the people there.

 

The first picture was of a family. A tall man with an arm around his wife and his son at his shoulder. In the wife’s arms was a small baby.

 

In the second picture there was no woman, but the other three were there. It was a graduation photo, the older boy now holding a diploma. His father stood at his side, and to his right was a small child with a purple t-shirt.

 

In the third picture the man was gone. Just two, now.

 

The older boy, now a man, and his younger sister beside him.

 

The younger girl was Camila.

 

Lauren knew it the second she saw the girl, her breath catching in her chest.

 

Affection for this tiny child swelled in Lauren’s chest and she reached a hand out toward the picture, as if the child might take her hand like Camila would have now. It was a shock to see a younger Camila, to realize that Camila did have a past after all.

 

She hadn’t been dropped out of the sky like Lauren sometimes wondered. This picture proved it in a way Lauren had never been able to see before, concrete and real.

 

Camila was real.

 

In the picture, Camila was wearing a small bow on her head, smaller than the one she had now. Her nose was just as cute, eyes big and brown.

 

Her eyes. Something about Camila’s eyes in the picture immediately caught Lauren’s attention. They were off, wrong.

 

The first time Lauren had seen Camila, she’d noticed how expressive her eyes were, how bright and vibrant and a little crazy. Camila was intense and focused and you could see it all, so easily.

 

The Camila in the picture was not unlike Lauren’s Camila, but she looked… stifled, Lauren thought, like all the vibrancy was hiding under a careful layer.

 

Also, she was frowning.

 

Lauren pursed her eyebrows together, staring at the photo with a distant sort of confusion. Camila was always smiling, now. Lauren always wanted Camila to be happy, even a Camila from the past who existed only in a photo on the wall of a strange house.

 

“Lolo, what are you doing?” Camila asked, bumping Lauren in the hip with a textbook. She had four of them balanced precariously in her arms. “Don’t be so quiet. It’s so quiet here.”

 

“Look,” Lauren said softly. She took the textbooks from Camila, stacking them on the floor and ignoring the indignant noise Camila made. She rested her hand on Camila’s back, nodding to the photos.

 

Camila was unmoved. “Pictures of people.”

 

“That’s you,” Lauren said, reaching out to tap the photo of Camila as a child. She stroked her thumb over the cold glass covering Camila’s tiny face, awestruck. “That’s you, Camz. When you were a kid. That’s you and your family.”

 

Camila did not seem pleased with this. She batted Lauren’s hand away from the photo suddenly, glaring when Lauren looked over. “I’m me,” she insisted sharply.

 

Lauren retracted her hand to her chest, feeling the burn where Camila’s fingernails had grazed her skin. She turned her hand over slowly, staring at a pink streak with confusion. Camila was always so patient and quietly knowing, Lauren was thrown off by her reaction.

 

Camila looked distressed and it abruptly came to Lauren’s attention, once again, that they were trespassing in someone’s home, uninvited. Someone who had known Camila.

 

Her heart beat strangely in her chest with the thought, her breath catching.  _Someone who knew Camila._

 

“You’re right,” Lauren said when she noticed Camila’s eyes were dangerously wet. “I mean, yeah, of course. You’re you. Of course you’re you,” she agreed, patting Camila’s back soothingly.

 

Giving a last curious glance to the pictures on the wall, Lauren stepped back.

 

“We should really leave. Leaving would be a good plan…” Lauren said as she led Camila into the next room, effectively ignoring her own advice.

 

How could they leave? There were pictures of Camila on the wall and stars in the front room. How could they possibly walk away from this? Whoever lived here must know Camila.

 

They could tell Lauren about Camila. They could give her answers to all the questions. They could tell Lauren where Camila had come from, why she was who she was, why she was Lauren’s soul mate.

 

Maybe they could tell Lauren why Camila loved her.

 

Camila’s fingers played across Lauren’s knuckles and Lauren took her hand. She tugged Camila to her side and Camila pressed closer than Lauren expected, somehow fitting there perfectly.

 

“Do you remember anything here?” Lauren asked. The room they were in now was a bedroom, generic and undecorated.

 

“I remember you,” Camila said hesitantly.

 

Lauren gave her an encouraging smile. Camila looked unsure of herself now, her amusement over the astronomy books apparently forgotten.

 

She looked frightened, like she did the time she’d sat buckled into Lauren’s car, trapped. One of them was shaking and Lauren wasn’t sure if it was Camila or herself.

 

“I don’t like it here,” Camila whispered against Lauren’s ear, lips moist against Lauren’s skin. “The books don’t speak to me. Everything is quiet. Why is it so quiet, Lauren?”

 

“It’s not quiet. I’m here,” Lauren said, stopping short to squeeze Camila’s hand, meeting her eyes. Camila didn’t look comforted, only staring into her eyes helplessly. Camila’s mood seemed suddenly to have changed and Lauren’s changed with it, something like fear and dread filling up her chest.

 

They shouldn’t be here. Camila didn’t want to be here.

 

“You’re okay,” Lauren said, noticing that Camila had not relaxed against her side. She lifted Camila’s chin with her thumb, giving a nervous smile. “We’re going to go home now, all right? I promise.”

 

They could come back later, Lauren told herself. They could come back when someone was home. Answering questions about Camila wasn’t as important as Camila herself.

 

“Can’t go home now,” Camila whispered, lifting her head from Lauren’s shoulder.

 

When Lauren turned around she found herself being held up by the bristly end of a broom.

 

“Well, fuck,” said Lauren to the broom.

 

More important than the broom in her face was the man holding it.

 

They had the same delicate nose, similar brown eyes. But the ones in front of Lauren were missing the spark of Camila’s eyes.

 

Holding a bristled broom at Lauren’s throat like a dangerous weapon was the older boy from the photos on the wall, the one who had stood next to Camila. He was tall, eyes wide behind rectangular glasses, and he didn’t look particularly happy to see them.

 

Camila’s hand tightened painfully around Lauren’s and Lauren coughed. The broom shook in the man’s hands.

 

“Um,” said Lauren. “Hi. My name is Lauren.”

 

The broom dropped. The man behind it focused wide eyes on Lauren, his mouth gaping open with no words.

 

“We didn’t think anyone was home,” Lauren said dumbly. The guy simply stared, unblinking, and Lauren winced. “Not that we make a habit of breaking into people’s houses when they’re not home, or anything. Well, Camila might. But she wasn’t. It was my fault. Did you know your window was open? Really unsafe. You should look into that.”

 

Lauren stopped babbling when she noticed the man was, in fact, not accusing them of burglary. He wasn’t even looking at Lauren, Lauren realized after a moment.

 

The man opened his mouth, his voice hoarse and odd. “Camila?”

 

Camila shifted closer to Lauren and cut off all circulation in her hand.

 

Lauren was surprised to hear Camila respond, her voice lonely in the loud silence. “Do you remember me?”

 

Camila sounded uncertain and Lauren took a careful half step forward to stand in front of her out of some protective instinct.

 

“Do I remember you?” the guy repeated, incredulous. He was staring at them both with eyes blown and wide. He looked white and ghostly, shoulders tense, and Lauren was glad the broom had been abandoned on the floor. Lauren took another step in front of Camila, leaving Camila to peek over her shoulder at the man. “Do I  _remember_  you? Are you crazy? You’re my  _sister_ , of course I remember you.”

 

Camila flinched back.

 

The man’s gaze was too intense, too seeing, and suddenly Lauren didn’t want to be here at all. She didn’t really want her questions answered. She didn’t want to meet anyone who had known Camila in a past life. She wanted to stay with Camila in their separate, comfortable world.

 

Before Lauren stood Camila’s brother, alive and there.

 

Too late now.


	26. Sparkles in the Shadows

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

The name formed on Lauren’s lips without thought. It was a name that had been lingering there for too long, poking at her curiosities and aggravating her worries.

 

The question hung in the air and the man’s eyes snapped to Lauren. It wasn’t a look of recognition on his face.

 

“Michael,” Lauren repeated uncertainly. “Your name. Is your name Michael?”

 

A muscle in the guy’s jaw jumped, his hands stiff at his sides. He looked to Camila, gaze too intense, and Lauren shifted over so she was shielding Camila again, even though the man in front of them was bigger and probably stronger than Lauren.

 

Camila was strangely silent. Lauren could hear her breathing against her neck, Camila’s hand fluttering in Lauren’s. Camila was usually so animated, always finding something to say. Now she was quiet and still. It wasn’t an encouraging sign.

 

Camila could talk about a discarded tin can for hours, but when she saw her brother – nothing.

 

“I’m not involved,” Camila’s brother finally said. His voice sounded harsh, rasping and odd, and Lauren held her ground in front of Camila. “I don’t know what is going on, but if you’ve come here for money, or—”

 

“We didn’t,” Lauren interrupted immediately. “We’re here for… for…”

 

“Answers,” Camila spoke up, moving so she was at Lauren’s side instead of protected behind her. Lauren didn’t like the change. She felt safer with Camila behind her. “For Lauren.”

 

Answers for Lauren. Lauren winced at the soft words.

 

They stood in a house where Camila may have once lived, in front of a member of her family. Not because Camila wanted to, not because Camila was ready, but because Lauren wanted it.

 

To satisfy Lauren’s curiosity, all of this.

 

Camila’s brother shook his head stiffly. “I won’t have anything to do with that. Don’t bring that here.”

 

“So you’re not…” Lauren trailed off. “Michael. You’re not him.”

 

This got Lauren a hard frown. “Ben Cabello. I had no relation to Michael. Whoever told you that, is mistaken.”

 

“The dead guy Ben?” Lauren asked stupidly. Ben, who was clearly not dead, looked confused.

 

“Ben,” Camila repeated, her tone distant and thoughtful. Lauren’s attention was immediately drawn to her. Camila looked warm and familiar in the foreign situation and Lauren squeezed her hand tighter. “I talk to Ben in the grass. He tells me about all the stars…” Camila shook his head, blinking hard. “You. You tell me about the stars.”

 

Ben swallowed thickly, taking a step back into the door frame. “This is unbelievable,” he breathed out.

 

Lauren had to agree.

 

“How are you here?” Ben asked, shaking his head. “How are you possibly… I thought you were gone. You were gone, Camila.”

 

Ben’s voice trailed off and the room was silent. Lauren expected Camila to say something insightful, even if it only made sense to her.  _Absence makes the heart grow fonder_. Instead, Camila said nothing.

 

Camila looked small. As lively as Camila usually was, her presence electrifying the air around her, she looked tiny and fragile here, like something Lauren should take very careful care of or it might shatter in her awkward hands, in Ben’s hands.

 

Camila didn’t look particularly comfortable with this man. Her brother.

 

Ben, who was not a body beneath the earth, not a gravestone, not the grass and the moss Camila talked to. Ben, who lived in a house not far from Lauren’s, with pictures of Camila on the wall.

 

Ben was clearly older than Camila, his hair short cropped and glasses balanced on his nose. At first glance they looked similar, familiar features on an unfamiliar face, but when Lauren looked closer she couldn’t say she saw the resemblance at all. Ben looked different in that he did not shine like Camila did. It was hard to see the similarity when the man before her was so ordinary.

 

It seemed wrong, incongruous. Lauren had been looking for something, but she was sure this wasn’t it.

 

Ben had been an entity in the grass and the stones and the sky. A friend of Camila’s. Someone Camila spoke of and Lauren listened. She had heard the name so many times. _Ben is growing new friends_  and  _Ben likes my new shoes_.

 

Now Ben was a man standing in front of them, someone with a stake in Camila’s life. A family member. Lauren had to fight down the irrational urge to claim ‘finders keepers,’ and run away with Camila to their deserted, fairytale island.

 

Suddenly, Ben strode across the room, right past Lauren and into Camila’s space. He cupped Camila’s cheek with a large hand, tilting Camila’s chin so she was forced to stare into Ben’s eyes. Ben’s touch wasn’t harsh but it wasn’t affectionate, either.

 

Something inside of Lauren clenched; a snarling, desperate thing.

 

“I thought you were gone, Camila. One night you just… I was trying to  _help_  you. I was going to help you and you just disappeared.”

 

“I don’t need help,” Camila responded immediately. Her voice was louder than Lauren was expecting, sure of herself and bold. The response was automatic and it felt practiced, like an argument they’d had so many times Camila knew her response without even having to think.

 

It was weird to think Camila had a history here.

 

Ben’s gaze darkened. “You’re so—God, Camila, you think you can just come here out of nowhere and…”

 

Camila made a soft noise of surprise as Ben’s fingers tightened around her jaw and suddenly Lauren found her own fingers wrapped crushingly around Ben’s wrist.

 

Ben’s brown eyes flicked to hers, surprised like he’d forgotten Lauren was there at all. Lauren stared back fiercely, tightening her grip until Ben released Camila, letting his hand drop with Lauren’s fingers still curled around it.

 

The two of them stood in silence. Slowly, Lauren pulled her hand away.

 

Ben made a hopeless, frustrated noise. “I suppose you should sit down.”

—–

They sat in the front room with the lamp, casting shadows through the window that no one would see.

 

Lauren sat close to Camila on a squeaky leather couch, trying to explain something she didn’t quite understand herself to someone she didn’t understand at all. The relationship she’d formed with Camila defied any words Lauren could form, string together in some clumsy semblance of an explanation for any of this.

 

Ben sat across from them, getting more tense the longer Lauren talked.

 

“This is insanity,” Ben said after Lauren had gone silent, no words left except  _she thought you_ _’_ _d know if we asked you._  Ben kept glancing to Camila and away again like he didn’t even know where to look, adjusting his glasses like he might see things differently through them. “This is all insane. I have a lecture to give today, I was planning to do laundry, I rented a movie. My life is simple now, and… you…. I thought you were gone, Camila. You can’t just leave and then…” Ben’s gaze flicked to Lauren, quietly accusing. “And you, I still don’t understand who  _you_  are.”

 

“Lolo,” Camila provided helpfully.

 

Lauren said nothing because, really, she couldn’t think of a better way to describe herself than that. Lolo.

 

Ben sighed, pressing his fingers to his temple. “You’ve established that. Who is  _Lolo_ , besides someone you moved in with for a reason that is inconceivable to me? What is she—what are _you_  doing here?”

 

Lauren shifted closer to Camila on the couch, bumping their shoulders together. She bit her lip, eyes flitting around the room nervously.

 

Lauren wanted to ask herself why they were here, too.

 

Maybe she’d wanted someone to look at Camila and assure Lauren that there really was nothing wrong with her, that Camila was okay, that it was okay, that they could be okay.

 

Maybe she’d wanted someone to tell her what to do. Maybe she’d wanted someone to tell her who Camila was. Someone to take all the questions away so everything was as simple as Lauren and Camila, together.

 

Lauren couldn’t help thinking things had been a lot simpler before she’d gone trying to fix it.

 

“I told you, Camila doesn’t remember,” Lauren spoke up, clearing her throat when her voice came out weak. “She needs—we need to know… a lot of things. Everything. Anything. Anything you can tell us. That’s why we’re here.”

 

Lauren nodded at her own words, stroking a finger over Camila’s wrist absently. She wasn’t sure exactly what to ask— _explain Camila to me_. Like anyone really could.

 

Lauren could see the framed family photos on the wall above Ben’s head. The tiny Camila there looked less and less like the one sitting next to her. Camila was humming a familiar tune softly, loud enough that Lauren knew it was for her to hear.

 

“Pay attention, Camila,” Ben said, his voice irritated now. He made a vague reaching motion for Camila but the couch was too far away from his chair, Ben’s hand hanging in the air. Lauren wasn’t ashamed to admit she was relieved, pressing closer against Camila’s side.

 

“The stars here are so pretty,” Camila said, tilting her head towards the ceiling like she could see them, her hair fluttering against Lauren’s cheek. “The first stars. All the other stars grew from here, covering the whole world, everything. Now they have the whole sky.”

 

“Hey,” Ben said, snapping his fingers in the air. “Don’t go all weird when I’m talking to you. I thought you were  _dead_ , Camila.”

 

Camila looked over, finally meeting Ben’s gaze. She tilted her head, and Lauren could tell she was analyzing, curious.

 

“Are you my friend?” Camila asked after a moment.

 

Lauren wondered too.

 

Was this man someone good? Lauren wasn’t sure. He appeared to be Camila’s brother, had been trying to help her with something. But he didn’t talk in a way that was affectionate; he didn’t reach out and hug Camila.

 

If Lauren had thought Camila was dead and miraculously gotten her back, Lauren didn’t think she’d ever let go of her again. She shivered just at the thought of it, stomach sick.

 

Ben just looked angry. “I’m your brother. What’s the matter with you?”

 

“No,” Camila said, sounding thoughtful. “I don’t know you.”

 

Ben shook his head, leaning back. He looked lost, pale and dizzy like Lauren felt. He also looked annoyed, which Lauren couldn’t understand at all.

 

“I used to know you,” Camila said. Her voice was a little hollow, her gaze vacant the way it got. “The world before this one. I knew you there.”

 

“I don’t understand,” Ben said, face blank.

 

Camila offered no explanation, as Camila rarely did, and Ben shifted his gaze to Lauren, expectant.

 

It took a few moments of uncomfortable silence before Lauren realized Ben expected answers from  _her_.

 

Camila spoke her own language, one that twisted around itself, dropped off in places and picked up in others and could leave you dizzy and wondering what exactly a spider web had to do with hair care and why it made Camila so happy.

 

Lauren could remember, a lifetime ago, meeting Camila outside her house and not understanding a word from her lips, like they really were speaking separate languages. She’d learned since then. She’d become fluent in Camila’s language, began to like it more than the one everyone else spoke.

 

As Ben stared at them blankly, Lauren realized it was a language he didn’t understand.

 

When Lauren offered him no simple translation Ben sighed, removing his glasses to rub a tired hand over his eyes. “I warned you that you you’d fry your brain. You really did. I warned you about Michael. You never did listen to me.”

 

“Who is he?” Lauren asked, the first question of many, even though she was having a hard time grasping them all now. She should ask, she thought. They were here now, Camila had brought her here because Lauren wanted it, and she should ask them now.

 

“You really didn’t know him?” Ben raised his eyebrow in a familiar motion. “And Camila hasn’t told you about him? You live together, don’t you?”

 

“She doesn’t tell me much.” It was a lie, Lauren knew it the moment the words escaped her lips. Camila told her a lot, just not in the way other people told each other things.

 

“Michael,” Ben said. A name to put to a face Lauren had never seen. “He got my sister involved in things she didn’t understand.” Camila huffed. “And Camila left with him like eight months ago. To have her fairytale romance, fairytale life. I told her it didn’t work that way.”

 

The name meant nothing.

 

Michael, who was apparently a person and not a lamppost Camila had grown fond of. A person who Camila had wanted to be with? A tiny, ugly part of Lauren shuddered at that and she beat it down, annoyed with herself.

 

It wasn’t the time for her own problems, Lauren reminded herself severely, bumping her knee against Camila’s. She’d already screwed up enough by making it about herself – answers for Lauren – and Camila deserved more than that.

 

Lauren cleared her throat, blindly grasping for information she didn’t know she even wanted. “So Michael is…”

 

“Was,” Ben said. “He died a month after Camila left with him. You really didn’t know.”

 

Lauren shook her head, tongue frozen and clumsy in her mouth. In the paradox that was Camila’s world, somehow it was Ben, the tombstone, who was alive, and Michael, who was coming on Monday, who was dead.

 

Camila was gazing at her manicured nails, tapping rhythms against the material of her jeans. She didn’t look as upset as Lauren would have expected her to be at the news. Despite her confusion, Lauren was relieved.

 

Maybe Camila didn’t understand it, what death meant, losing someone like they’d never been there at all. Maybe Camila had known Michael was dead all along, and Lauren just hadn’t asked her the right questions to find out.

 

Maybe Lauren should have been asking Camila the questions all along.

 

“I thought you died with him,” Ben said. Camila didn’t look up but Ben kept talking anyway, words falling over each other in a rush to get out. “I thought you would have been with him. If you’d been alive, I thought you’d swallow your pride and come home. You didn’t.”

 

“I did,” Camila said. Her hand moved to Lauren’s chest, an affectionate touch over her heart. “I am home.”

 

Ben looked away. “You’re right,” he said stiffly. “Your home isn’t here anymore. I don’t know who you are. I don’t know why either of you are here.”

 

“Because you’re her family,” Lauren snapped, fists clenching in her lap.

 

Camila was so accepting of all of this, quiet and undisturbed when Ben didn’t reach out and accept her like he should have. Lauren felt angrier for it. One of them had to be upset. Camila deserved for one of them to be upset.

 

How could this man, Camila’s brother, abandon her so easily? Let her go like she’d never belonged at all, let her live where she had, alone. Lauren didn’t have any siblings, but she knew if she did, she wouldn’t treat them like this guy treated Camila.

 

“I’m not her anything,” Ben said. Lauren was stuck in an uncomfortable place between wanting to yell at Ben for discarding his own sister and wanting to agree with him, that Ben was nothing to Camila. “Not anymore. She made her bed, let her lay in it.”

 

Lauren seethed. “She didn’t have a bed! She slept on the floor of an abandoned building. She was squatting when I met her. She doesn’t talk in a way people understand. I thought she had no one, but you’re her—”

 

“She chose that,” Ben snapped. He didn’t look sympathetic. “She had a place to live, she had a family, even if it was just us. She chose to leave—you chose to leave, Camila. You chose that life.”

 

“I like it,” Camila said. Camila looked serene, unafraid now. She was smiling at Lauren. “I like living with Lauren. I don’t need help.”

 

Ben hung his head, rubbing the back of his neck like it ached.

 

“She’s my soul mate,” Camila added, watching Ben closely as Ben stared at nothing. When Ben didn’t react Camila turned to Lauren, eyes honest. “You’re my soul mate.”

 

Lauren offered her a small smile in return. “Soul mates,” she said softly. A promise, maybe.

 

Ben scoffed and Lauren turned to him. “We’re soul mates,” she proclaimed loudly, in case Ben hadn’t heard well enough.

 

“You think you know anything?” Ben said, his face twisting into an ugly thing. “I was here for her. I was her only family left. And she left to have her little storybook romance with some delinquent she didn’t even know, who promised her the sky.” Ben snorted. “Look how well that worked out. She’s crazier than before.”

 

Lauren didn’t think Ben meant ‘crazy’ in the same affectionate, gentle way the word connected to Camila in her head.

 

“She talks to you in the graveyard,” Lauren said meanly, wanting to hurt Ben with anything she could, make the man react like Lauren thought he should have. “A crumbling grave. She calls it Ben. She tells it everything.”

 

“He talks to me in a graveyard? You think that’s normal?” Ben’s features pulled tight, his voice hard with some mix of emotions Lauren didn’t really understand. “I was trying to get her help, psychiatric evaluation, medication. Mom and Dad were gone and she was so distant and I was just… I was trying to help her. She left. She chose to leave. It was what she wanted. Now she has it.”

 

What Camila had wanted.

 

Even then, before Camila had been who she was now, she’s wanted and needed and done things without thought for consequences. She didn’t worry, Camila just chose the things she wanted and went with them even if the thing she wanted was to stick her hand into the fire of a burning stove.

 

And she didn’t regret it. Camila’s hip rubbed against Lauren’s as they sat close on the couch of a home where Camila had once lived, and Lauren knew Camila didn’t regret it.

 

Even when Camila wasn’t getting what she needed, wanted, what she deserved, Camila was pleased with the world in a way Lauren never had been, in a way a lot of people wouldn’t be even if they got everything they wanted in life.

 

If Camila didn’t regret it, why should Lauren regret it for her?

 

In a cold rush of emptiness, like a weight being lifted, her chest and her vision light, Lauren was realizing it didn’t really matter. Camila’s family, Ben or Michael or anyone else she had once known, they weren’t there now.

 

“You’re right. You’re not her family,” Lauren said after a moment. “I’m her family.”

 

Camila was watching her, silent, and Lauren reached out blindly, Camila grabbing her hand in air. “You’re mine,” Lauren added, just in case Camila hadn’t already been sure. “You’re my family, too.”

 

“Yes,” Camila said simply. “I know.”

 

“Yeah,” Lauren said, a smile pulling at her lips. “Thought you might. You’re always waiting for me to catch up.”

 

Always waiting. Waiting for Lauren, most of the time. At least she was catching on. She felt like she was catching on.

 

Ben was watching them both with an unreadable expression. “Just go,” she said finally. “Just ask your questions and leave. I don’t want you here. Either of you.”

 

Lauren did have questions. There was a part of her that wanted to know everything about Camila, her parents’ names and her first word, what had happened to her parents and why she had needed ‘help.’ She wanted to know useless things and important things and she wanted to know that it was okay, that they could be okay.

 

But Ben couldn’t give her what she wanted.

 

Lauren wanted the answers from Camila. Answers Camila could give her, answers Camila knew herself, answers Camila wanted her to know, was offering to her because she wanted to share them with Lauren.

 

Maybe Ben could have given her answers, but they weren’t what Lauren needed.

 

This man didn’t know Camila. He may have been Camila’s brother, but he’d never really met her. Lauren knew Camila, Camila knew herself. That was it. The two of them. There had never been anyone else and there wasn’t now.

 

“No. You don’t have anything we need,” Lauren said. A moment passed in silence and Lauren glanced to Camila, suddenly unsure. Ben was, after all,  _Camila_ _’_ _s_  brother, even if it was Lauren who had brought them here, Lauren who had wanted this. “Um, I mean, does he?”

 

Ben looked up, face tight and unreadable. Camila was watching him curiously, tilting her head to see from a new direction. Lauren watched and wondered if Camila saw anything there, anything familiar. Or, if like Lauren, she only saw a stranger.

 

“You’re a shadow,” Camila decreed after awhile, her eyes dark and thoughtful. She said it as if she wasn’t quite sure if that was good or bad.

 

It made sense. To Lauren it made sense. Ben was the shadow. Ben was the shadow that Camila had been watching in the window, for months perhaps. Even standing right in front of them, he was still just a shadow.

 

Ben didn’t look like he understood at all. “What happened to you? You hardly remember me and you’re acting… wrong. What’s wrong with you?”

 

Wrong, because everyone thought she was.

 

The expression on Ben’s face was pitying, like Camila was a small, broken thing.

 

Camila was far from broken. She was magic and passion and joy and curiously. She was everything Lauren wanted to be, everything Lauren hadn’t known she wanted to be. Everything Lauren wanted to hold, to keep, to be with.

 

Camila was humming to herself and Ben turned to Lauren, looking for answers there. “What’s wrong with her?”

 

This time, Lauren knew the answer. “Nothing. There’s nothing wrong with her.”

 

This time, Lauren could believe it.

 

She was sure there was something wrong with Ben, but there wasn’t anything wrong with Camila.

 

“Thanks,” Lauren said after a moment. Ben looked puzzled but Lauren didn’t feel the need to elaborate.

 

Camila stood first. She tugged on Lauren’s hand once, indicating for Lauren to follow. She didn’t look upset as she walked to the door, waiting for Lauren. Ben looked after her, not saying anything.

 

Camila had no attachment to this place, nothing here she wanted to keep. Ben wasn’t her family, this wasn’t her home.

 

Lauren stepped forward, past the man, past the shadow, past him and towards Camila.

 

Lauren turned as Camila opened the door, catching a last glance of Ben – who looked nothing like Camila, only like a stranger – his head hung low beneath family photos of two-dimensional people.

 

Camila didn’t say goodbye, but she didn’t say good morning either.

 

The door clicked shut and Camila curled a strand of Lauren’s hair in her fingers, tugging. Lauren’s body felt warm and comfortable. They’d go home together because that was where Camila belonged, where they belonged. Whoever Camila was before, whoever her family was, things had changed. There was no going back. Camila didn’t want to go back.

 

As they walked back towards home, Lauren looked back at the house. It was dark, and she couldn’t see any shadows through the window.


	27. Remember This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

“I remember this,” Camila said. “And this, and this.”

 

She pointed to things as she moved through the house, fingers traveling along the surfaces of paintings she’d named and lamps she’d befriended. Lauren closed the door firmly behind them, locking it, safe in their own world again.

 

“I remember this,” said Camila, picking up a book of fairytales left on the floor. “And this—” Lauren’s teddy bear “—and this—” Elvis “—and you. I remember you.”

 

Camila stood in the family room, collected things she remembered in her arms. She looked to Lauren with hopeful eyes, hair swept behind her ear. The curve of her neck was soft and delicate, warm light reflecting over the side of her face.

 

Slowly, Lauren moved to stand in front of her and pulled the things from Camila’s hands, setting each one down, Elvis scampering off. Camila held on stubbornly to the last thing, Lauren’s teddy bear, her fingers clenched desperately around its plush leg.

 

Lauren grazed her thumb over the knob of Camila’s wrist, hoping it was soothing, and after a moment Camila reluctantly let the bear go. When Camila had nothing left in her arms, Lauren pulled her into a tight hug.

 

Camila gasped, surprised, but clung back fiercely.

 

“I don’t remember you,” Lauren said, her words muffled against Camila’s shoulder. “I don’t have to remember you. You’re right here.”

 

It felt good to hold her, like Lauren had expected it to. It felt like she thought it would. Her arms locked tightly around Camila’s waist and Lauren never wanted to let go.

 

Camila struggled out of the hug.

 

“Did he tell you what you wanted?” Camila asked, biting her lip. “Do you have the answers now?”

 

“No,” Lauren said, shaking her head. She felt short of breath after all of it. She wanted to pull Camila into another hug but it was already over and it hadn’t lasted long enough. “He can’t. Ben can’t.”

 

Camila drooped visibly. “Oh.”

 

Lauren’s heart clenched. She shoved her hands into the pockets of her jacket to stop herself from reaching out and grabbing Camila. “It’s not like that. Ben doesn’t know you. He doesn’t know us. What I wanted, I can only get it from you.”

 

Camila looked lost, head tilted down as she peeked up at Lauren. “What if I don’t know?”

 

It was strange for Camila to admit to not knowing something. There was so much she seemed not to have the answers to, so much information missing, and yet she was always so sure of everything, of herself. She never wanted Lauren to think she wasn’t, to admit she wasn’t as sure of everything as she acted.

 

It was one of the countless trusts that Camila had put in her, and Lauren promised herself she wouldn’t break this one too. “You don’t have to know. I don’t want to know more than you do, anyway. What use would that be?”

 

Camila looked confused, and Lauren couldn’t blame her. It was confusing to Lauren and she’d been the one insisting it all mattered.

 

“I think,” Lauren said slowly, looking down because she couldn’t look at Camila, both of them staring at the space between their feet. “I think I was looking for an instruction manual or something, you know?  _Caring For Your Camila For Dummies_. That was stupid. I’m stupid.”

 

Lauren looked up when Camila made an offended noise, either at Lauren’s words or that Lauren had insulted herself. Knowing Camila, she was probably offended on Lauren’s behalf rather than her own.

 

Camila wound her fingers carefully around Lauren’s long hair, tugging. “You’re a rock star, remember?”

 

Rock stars, together. The thought still brought a smile to Lauren’s face, even as she shook her head. “Yeah, well, I’m a really stupid rock star, okay? I’ve never cared about anyone like I care about you. Hell, I don’t think I’ve cared about anyone at all in the last year. And, I don’t know, I guess I forgot that people don’t come with directions. Which is why I’m really freaking stupid.”

 

“Rock star,” Camila insisted, edging closer to bump Lauren’s shoe with her own.

 

“Yeah,” Lauren agreed, bumping her back. “Rock stars together.”

 

Camila smiled.

 

“Do you like the starts because of him?” Lauren wondered. She reached out to stroke her thumb on Camila’s cheek. “Because of all the astronomy stuff he had?”

 

Even if they’d had the same interest, Lauren thought it must have been in completely different ways. Ben, who probably saw something to study, and Camila, who saw something to love. Lauren didn’t think Ben would have sat on a roof to watch stars with Camila, listen to her as she translated all the little things they whispered.

 

Ben didn’t know Sparkles’s favorite nights were the ones when the clouds were so clear she could see the whole world below. He didn’t know which stars were her friends and which were her meddlesome neighbors. Ben didn’t know Sparkles’s favorite candy was gummy bears, which was why they always had to bring some up on the roof only for Camila to claim the star wasn’t hungry and eat them herself.

 

“Because of Ben,” Camila said, her fingers finding Lauren’s. “Ben likes the stars. He could like me too if I could just shine like them.”

 

“You do. God, you do,” Lauren said, incredulous that of all the things Camila thought shined, she didn’t see it in herself. “The stars don’t even shine without you. Ben’s even more of an idiot than I am if he can’t see that.”

 

“You’re not stupid,” Camila said, looking exasperated that Lauren hadn’t understood the first time. “You’re just a little slow.”

 

Lauren laughed, surprised. “Yeah, okay.  _Slow_. I can agree with that.”

 

She was sure she was catching up, though. She was catching up to Camila, even if Camila was just as confused as she was. They could be confused together, unsettled and unstable in a way that was always exciting, frightening, and perfect.

 

Lauren moved her finger around Camila’s face, her thumb against Camila’s soft skin. It was the first answer, she realized. The first one from Camila. She liked the starts because of Ben.

 

The answer didn’t mean as much as Lauren had once thought it would, but that fact that Camila had given it to her, had known it, that meant a lot more.

 

Camila’s hand slipped away from Lauren’s and Lauren pulled back. She shifted, looking away. Camila reached to pull something out of her pocket, lenses catching the light for a moment.

 

“How did you get those?” Lauren asked, surprised. Camila flicked the earpieces of Ben’s glasses open. She held them up towards the window, watching with an awed expression, amazed and impressed like Camila was with all the tiny, unimpressive things.

 

“They’re for my box,” Camila told her.

 

“They’re not even that shiny,” Lauren protested, even as the light reflected off the glass.

 

She didn’t want anything from that house, that man, that past life. It wasn’t good enough for Camila and even when Lauren wanted Camila to remember the things she couldn’t, Lauren only wanted Camila to remember the good things. That wasn’t so irrational, was it?

 

Tilting the glasses to reflect a tiny rainbow of color against the wall, Camila bestowed Lauren with a patient, affectionate smile. “Everything shines.”

 

Despite everything, Lauren almost believed it.

 

Even if the whole world was dull, Camila made everything shine.

—–

Lauren played Camila’s song on the guitar that night. She wasn’t even sure what it sounded like. The notes played in odd ways and she didn’t know where they would lead her. Strange places.

 

It didn’t sound bad.

 

When Camila sat down next to Lauren and began to sing sweet, senseless things that made all too much sense, it even sounded good. Better than anything Lauren had heard before.

 

It was a song she’d never imagined when she’d set her guitar aside for a year. She hadn’t thought of the music then, she hadn’t wanted to. Camila had brought that to her, the music and all the other things Lauren had never expected.

 

When the music trailed off into quiet hums and random plucks of strings, as Lauren had yet to come up with an ending for the song, Camila was watching her curiously.

 

“It’s for you,” Lauren said, feeling her cheeks heat up embarrassingly. “The song. It’s for you. It sounds like you in my head.”

 

Camila stroked the side of the guitar thoughtfully, plucking at a string with curious fingers. “I sound like that?”

 

Lauren blushed deeper, twiddling with the hem of her t-shirt. She’d never been good at knowing what to say, but playing music for Camila felt like saying everything, even the things she wasn’t sure she should say at all.

 

“I like it,” Camila decided, eyes shining delightedly.

 

Lauren nodded, swallowing around an annoying lump in her throat. “I like it too.”

 

“Play it again, Lolo.”

 

Lauren did.

 

They spent the rest of the night playing music and singing the song that was for Camila, and it only sounded better each time. Lauren didn’t say anything outside of the music. That was easier. She wasn’t sure what she should say and what she shouldn’t. She didn’t ask any questions, either. If Camila wanted to tell her something, she would. If she didn’t, the music was good enough.

 

It was only when they were both going to their beds – separate beds in separate rooms – that Lauren had something to say.

 

“Camz,” she called, giving a small smile before Camila closed her door. “Good morning.”

—–

Lauren woke to a warm body nudging up into her arms, Camila’s toes against Lauren’s ankle.

 

“Hey,” Lauren murmured into the night, her voice hoarse with sleep. “You get cold?”

 

Camila’s hair tickled against Lauren’s cheek, a nod.

 

The room was pitch black, way too early to be awake, and Lauren shifted to find a comfortable spot closer to the heat of Camila’s body before closing her eyes again. Camila clung to Lauren, hooking her arms and legs around her like she used to. It was comfortable and Lauren felt herself drifting off, dreaming of being with Camila in a warm place where everything was right.

 

“I see him in my sleep,” Camila said from the dark. Her fingers were icy when they hooked around Lauren’s arm. “It’s so cold. I’m not cold with you. Don’t go away, Lolo.”

 

Lauren jerked awake, an abrupt change at Camila’s words, her heart skipping. She shifted, only enough to reach for the bedside lamp, but Camila clung tighter when Lauren moved, making a small noise of protest.

 

“I’m not leaving,” she promised. The light flickered on, shining sharply. Camila’s eyes were already trained trustingly on Lauren’s face.

 

Camila was strange after nightmares sometimes, far away and confused. Lauren had learned quickly, mostly through Camila’s own example, that touch would calm her faster than anything else. Lauren stroked her skin, curling an arm around Camila’s waist and bumping Camila’s foot companionably. Soon Camila shifted closer and rested her head on Lauren’s pillow, their noses brushing and Camila’s warm breath puffing against Lauren’s lips.

 

It didn’t feel cold. Lauren took Camila’s hand in hers, rubbing her icy fingers to warm them up. “What do you dream about?” she wondered.

 

“I dream about him,” Camila said, eyes drifting shut like she could see it now. “About Michael.”

 

She hadn’t actually been expecting an answer, and Lauren’s chest tightened at the name. It burned, somewhere. A part of her that thought of Camila with someone else, someone who had been her soul mate before Lauren was her soul mate. Two soul mates? Was it even possible?

 

It was stupid to feel possessive when Lauren wasn’t even accepting the thing she wanted to protect. She knew it was, but it didn’t make the feeling go away.

 

She forced a comforting smile anyway, because Camila still looked scared and Lauren hated for her to look that way.

 

“You should tell Michael to install central heating,” Lauren whispered, nudging Camila hopefully. “I don’t want you being cold, you might get sick.” Lauren frowned at the thought. “You’re not sick…?”

 

Her hand searched out Camila’s forehead and Camila nuzzled into the touch.

 

“Michael was sick,” Camila said, and Lauren pulled back, surprised. Camila was staring up at her in the artificial light. “His head was all sick. I thought we might be alike that way.”

 

Mouth open, Lauren simply stared. Even when Camila had been willing to tell her about the stars earlier, she was surprised to be told anything concrete, anything about Michael where Camila’s thoughts didn‘t drift away to how exciting newspaper print was.

 

Camila gaze flickered away uncertainly. “You wanted to know, you said.”

 

“Yeah…” Lauren thought she wanted to know, anyway. “Do you want to tell me?”

 

Camila rolled over onto her back, staring up at the ceiling. Her hand found Lauren’s on the mattress. “Sometimes I forget things,” she said. “Sometimes I remember things, too.”

 

“What kind of things?” Lauren asked, pushing herself up on one elbow to stare down at Camila intently.

 

Camila kept her eyes on the ceiling. “I was lost. Everyone had gone and I was lost so I was looking. He was looking with me.”

 

Camila stopped, frowning and looking a little lost now. Nervous energy hummed underneath Lauren’s skin. She had no idea what to do, if it was good for Camila to talk or if it would only make her upset, make the nightmares worse.

 

But if Camila wanted to tell her, Lauren wanted to know. Anything Camila wanted to tell her, Lauren wanted to know.

 

“So, what were you looking for?”

 

Camila didn’t look upset. She shrugged against the sheets, like it didn’t really matter. “I’d know it when I saw it. When you’re lost you look for everything until you find something.” Camila smiled dreamily. “I found my soul mate.”

 

Something tightened in Lauren’s chest, constricting around her heart. “Your other soul mate.”

 

Camila was silent for a moment, just looking at her with an open expression. Lauren swallowed, about to pull away, when Camila’s hand found the front of her pajama top, resting over Lauren’s heart. “I have half and you have half. Together we’re whole.”

 

“What about Michael?” Lauren asked, cautious of the hope that was growing under Camila’s hand.

 

Camila tilted her head, meeting Lauren’s gaze. “He had no soul. That was why. I had half and he didn’t have one at all. I thought we’d look together. I thought he knew where to look, all the hidden places I’d never seen. He promised he’d show me them. I couldn’t see anything and I wanted to see everything.”

 

“So he wasn’t,” Lauren repeated, just to hear it again. “He wasn’t your soul mate. Just me.”

 

“Just you,” Camila agreed. She rewarded Lauren with a tiny, special smile before turning back to stare at the ceiling. “He had no soul. Like the walls.”

 

“You do get along with the walls,” Lauren said, reaching out to fluff Camila’s hair.

 

“They won’t talk to me,” Camila grumbled mutinously. She peeked out of the corner of her eye at the wall, giving it a miffed look. “I only want to be friends. I even sing to them, but they never sing back.”

 

Lauren chuckled. “They’ll come around eventually. No one can resist you for long.”

 

Any resistance Lauren had once tried to put up against Camila’s strange charm had long since crumbled and fallen away. Even inanimate objects would give into her eventually, like the walls. Even a soulless man?

 

Lauren wondered what that meant. Whatever it was, it meant Michael wasn’t Camila’s soul mate, couldn’t have been, and Lauren relished the fact. Selfish and desperate, she wanted Camila all to herself, even over a dead man.

 

“Did he show you?” Lauren asked after awhile. “What you were looking for, did he help you find it? I mean, before he died.”

 

“No, I think he was blind,” Camila said, her own eyes shut as she remembered. “His eyes were strange like chemicals. They dull everything out but his eyes are only brighter.”

 

“Oh,” Lauren said, biting her lip. She wasn’t sure what it meant.

 

“The eyes are the window to the soul,” Camila said, turning to look at Lauren again. Her hair was soft against her cheek and Lauren reached out idly to push it back, revealing the curve of her jaw. “I couldn’t see anything when I looked into his.”

 

“Why’d you go with him, then?” Lauren asked, frowning. If Ben had been telling the truth, then Camila had left home on her own. Lauren couldn’t understand it, leaving a comfortable, stable place to be with someone who apparently had no soul.

 

But then, that was Camila, wandering off to find all the brightest stars and the friendliest flora.

 

Camila shook her head, scrunching her eyebrows. “I didn’t fit anymore… It was small and dark and I wanted to know what the sky looked like.”

 

“Ben wanted you to fit,” Lauren realized, remembering the man’s pitying gaze. He had said he’d wanted to help Camila, but Lauren thought he’d just wanted to change her, make Camila fit into a little box. Camila was too bright for that, too different. “He wanted you to be small like him. Stupid.”

 

Camila nodded, her hand trailing over her stomach.

 

“Like a princess in a tower,” Camila said, because the language of fairytales always seemed to be easier for her. “The knight wasn’t there, so I left with the dragon instead.”

 

Somehow, this made more sense to Lauren than anything else had.

 

“I kissed him but he didn’t turn into the prince,” Camila said, frowning.

 

Lauren laughed despite herself. “You should have tried a frog instead.”

 

Camila’s eyes focused on Lauren’s lips, contemplative. Lauren shoved her playfully. “Tell me the rest of the story. What happened to the dragon?”

 

“He blew fire and went up in flames, as they do,” Camila said. “It was so hot, it hurt…” Camila trailed off, looking lost again.

 

Lauren stiffened at the thought of Camila in pain, her hand reaching out to grasp Camila’s involuntarily. Her fingers weren’t cold anymore but Lauren rubbed them anyway. “You don’t have to,” she said, uncomfortable with the way Camila’s eyes had gone dark. Camila had been doing so well, and Lauren didn’t want to upset her now. “Don’t think about it. It doesn’t matter anymore, anyway. Just forget that part.”

 

“I forgot,” Camila went on anyway. “I thought he was coming back. He’s not coming.”

 

“No, he’s not,” Lauren whispered.

 

“He told me he wouldn’t,” Camila said, a confused frown marring her features. “After I kissed him and I told him he wasn’t my soul mate. He said we’d fix that. He said we wouldn’t come back. It would be over and we wouldn’t be lost anymore. He was tired and he wanted to give up.”

 

Lauren said nothing, clenching Camila’s hand tighter. An uncomfortable feeling clamped around her lungs, suffocating and frightening.

 

“He said we’d be up in the stars,” Camila said, tilting her chin back to examine the ceiling. “I told him you couldn’t drive to the stars, no matter how fast you went. They’re light-years away, and much bigger than they look. Whole galaxies.” Camila frowned. “He didn’t listen. We’d drive off the side of the world, he said.”

 

“Camila…” Lauren whispered, her breath stuck in her chest.

 

“It was so fast… He said we’d be soul mates there. He said we’d be happier there.” Camila tilted her head back, looking to Lauren. She gave a slow smile in the dim lighting, affectionate. “I’m happier here.”

 

Lauren’s throat felt rough, unused and broken. “I’m glad you’re happier,” she rasped out.

 

Lauren couldn’t remember now why she’d thought Camila was afraid of the car. Not this. Never this.

 

The thought made Lauren tremble with too many emotions to even name. Someone Camila trusted trying to hurt her, trying to take her away from the world, everything that she loved, everything that shined. Throwing both their lives away like Camila wasn’t worth anything.

 

“It’s not fair,” Lauren said, grasping Camila’s arm tightly with shaking fingers. “It’s not freaking fair. You belong in a fairytale with your stars and your cat and a knight and a castle. Not this.”

 

“I’m here now,” Camila offered, patting Lauren like she was the one who needed comforting.

 

To Camila, the ceiling was the sky, their house the castle, and Lauren the knight.

 

“Was it worth it?” Lauren said in what she’d intended to be a gentle tone. Her throat felt dry, though, her voice weak and strange. “You gave up everything to look for miracles with some soulless, suicidal jerk. Was it even worth it?”

 

“I’m here now,” Camila repeated. Lauren thought it was a yes. “He promised he’d show me.”

 

Lauren laughed hollowly. “People breaking their promises to you all the time, aren’t they.”

 

“All his promises were broken, just like the rest of him,” Camila said. She reached out to touch Lauren’s cheek, her fingers meeting wetness Lauren hadn’t known was there. “Not like you, Lolo.”

 

Lauren tried not to think of the promise she wasn’t sure she should have made. “Right,” she whispered instead.

 

“You’re the knight,” Camila reminded her.

 

Lauren swallowed the lump in her throat, nodding. “And the hero.”

 

Camila smiled. She looked so unaffected by it all, safe and happy even then. Because Lauren was there, because Camila believed in her. Lauren would live up to that. She’d just have to. There were no other options. She’d make it up to Camila. She’d have to make it up to her for not being there when Camila had gone with a dragon instead of a knight.

 

“Did it hurt?” Lauren wondered, cradling Camila’s head with her hand like she could protect Camila now.

 

She didn’t look like she was broken apart and put back together again. She looked perfect, flawless. She looked like Camila, and maybe the whole thing was just a nightmare, maybe it could be one.

 

“I don’t remember,” Camila said.

 

Lauren laughed, a slightly hysterical sound. She placed her hand over Camila’s heart familiarly, holding still and calming in her presence.

 

Whatever terrible things had happened, Camila was there now. They were there together. It was enough.

 

“You’re not sick,” Lauren said after awhile of lying in each other’s presence. She pulled Camila closer. The room was quiet and Camila was still watching her with the same open and perceptive gaze. “You said Michael was sick, that you were like him. You weren’t, you still aren’t. There’s nothing wrong with you.”

 

“No?” Camila asked, looking up into her eyes.

 

Lauren shook her head adamantly. “No. There’s definitely something wrong with everyone else in the world, but there’s nothing wrong with you.”

 

Some people were stupid, sick, and broken. Camila was Camila. Camila was herself. Camila was everything that was right in a world of terrible, wrong things.

 

Camila fit perfectly in Lauren’s arms. One arm wrapped around Camila and the other hand against Camila’s chest, Lauren could feel her heart beating.

 

This didn’t feel wrong, either.


	28. Company

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

Lauren liked watching Camila.

 

Her cute nose, her ears and her cheeks, begging to be touched. Her mouth moved against the pillow like she was speaking, no words. Her skin with tiny moles and faint smile lines, secrets Lauren could only see if she looked close enough. Look deeper, look closer, find what’s inside.

 

It may have been creepy to stare, but Camila had crept into her room at night to stare at Lauren before. Lauren thought this was only fair. She was just repaying the favor.

 

Also, Camila was… Lauren wasn’t even sure of the word, but she never wanted to look away. Their bed was warm and welcoming, and Lauren would have been happy, actually happy like she’d never knew she could be, to lay there and stare forever.

 

Camila’s cat seemed to have other ideas.

 

The plaintive meowing had started just as Lauren woke and only gotten louder and more insistent over the next hour. By now Elvis’s howls were a constant, miserable thing. Camila must have left her door open at night for the cat to sleep in her bed. Or perhaps Elvis just didn’t like sharing his human with Lauren.

 

Whichever it was, Lauren wished the cat would be quiet because Camila’s eyelashes had begun to flutter. Lauren had soothed her back to sleep with a hand in her hair and a soft word twice, but now light was coming in through their window, highlighting Camila’s angles, and Lauren knew the moment would soon end.

 

What came next, Lauren didn’t know. Her head spun with uncertainty.

 

When she looked back to the crinkle she’d been studying just by Camila’s eye, Camila was watching her too, her eyes half lidded and sleepy.

 

“Do you know you have a scar on your eyebrow?” Lauren murmured. “Tiny scar, right here.”

 

Her fingers reached out to touch like she’d been wanting to all morning and Camila made a curious noise. Lauren’s thumb grazed delicate skin.

 

“Oh,” Camila said softly, and reached out questioningly. Lauren didn’t think she pulled away but Camila’s hand never quite touched her face, stopping short.

 

Camila rolled back, eyes on the ceiling as she stretched, hands against the headboard. The single blanket she’d had wrapped around her feet, hogging most of it from Lauren, slipped to the floor. Just Camila and Lauren on a bed together, their toes brushing.

 

Camila tilted her head, watching Lauren from an odd angle, a funny smile on her face.

 

“I missed you,” Lauren said, and wasn’t sure why.

 

“While I was sleeping?” Camila asked. Her voice was low and drowsy, hair ruffled endearingly.

 

Lauren shrugged against the pillows, stretching an arm above her head to bump Camila’s on the headboard. “Sort of. Maybe before that? I don’t know, it’s early.”

 

Camila hummed agreeably, her eyes drifting shut like she might consider going back to sleep. Lauren hoped for a moment that Camila would, so she could go back to shameless staring. Not that she wouldn’t stare when Camila was awake, she was just slightly more shamed about it.

 

Lauren didn’t know what the right thing to say was after everything Camila had trusted her with. In the morning light Camila still looked like the same Camila as always. She still felt the same at Lauren’s side, the same way Camila had felt curled up against her the first night. Camila hadn’t changed, and Lauren didn’t know if she should have to say anything at all.

 

Maybe they could plant Ben’s glasses in the garden.

 

Camila’s fingers tickled Lauren’s skin, two fingers crawling up Lauren’s arm until Camila’s hand was in her hair. Her eyes twinkled, mischievous as she began to play with Lauren’s hair, humming a song to charm the hidden snakes.

 

Lauren closed her eyes, charmed herself, melting back into the sheets as Camila cuddled closer. “Missed you a lot,” Lauren said, Camila’s nose tickling her cheek lightly.

 

A crash sounded from the hall.

—–

“Sorry, Grandma,” Lauren mourned as she swept the last piece of a shattered antique lamp into a trash bag. Camila was leaning against the wall nearby, Elvis in her arms as she cooed lovingly at the cat.

 

“Poor Elvis,” Camila said, scratching behind a triangular ear. “That horrible lamp attacked him.”

 

Lauren shook her head fondly as she tied the trash bag shut. “I think Elvis is lying to you, Camz.”

 

Camila huffed, offended. Elvis simply purred under her hand. The cat always had Camila’s loyalty but Lauren figured it was only fair. Elvis had been there for Camila longer than Lauren had, and she could appreciate that. Lauren liked the cat significantly more than any of Camila’s other previous companions, anyway.

 

As Lauren swung the bag of broken glass back and forth sharp edges clinked against each other piercingly. Camila’s attention snapped to her immediately, alert and inquisitive.

 

“There’s music in your bag,” she said, a tiny smile growing as she reached for the black plastic.

 

Lauren pulled it back. “It’s music with sharp edges.”

 

“That’s the best kind,” Camila insisted. She tried to grab for the trash bag again but Lauren ducked out of her reach, slipping past Camila down the hall.

 

She didn’t make it far. Camila attached onto the back of Lauren’s sweatshirt, stretching it back and holding tight so Lauren came to an abrupt halt. “You cannot throw  _music_  away,” Camila said, sounding scandalized. “Not anymore. You know better, Lolo.”

 

“But it’s broken,” Lauren protested. She knew Camila didn’t like for anything to be thrown away, but the lamp was all glass and sharp edges and Camila liked it even less when someone started bleeding.

 

“It’s not broken,” Camila said as she pulled the bag of very broken lamp from Lauren’s hands.

 

“No, hey, no.” Worried, Lauren tugged on Camila’s arm, Camila ignoring her efforts easily. “It is broken. You’ll hurt yourself.”

 

“You could have one broken thing,” Camila said, moving with purpose into the kitchen. She opened the bag and turned it over, promptly pouring out a pile of shattered crystal onto the kitchen table. It sparkled and clattered and Camila beamed. She lifted one shard up to show Lauren proudly. “Or you could have many new things.”

 

Lauren examined the broken glass in Camila’s hand, thoughtful. Camila had brought Lauren many new things. Camila herself was a new thing, something beautiful from something broken.

 

“That lamp never worked anyway,” Lauren decided. She grasped the glass from Camila’s open palm and planted it on the windowsill where it could reflect the light.

 

“Perfect!”

 

“Yeah, perfect,” Lauren said, laughing. She found a vase in the cupboard, collecting the rest of the glass pieces in it and setting that on the windowsill as well. The light reflected in colorful rays. It did look cool, Lauren had to admit.

 

“You see?” Camila leaned forward to tap Lauren on the nose. “If you’d thrown it away you couldn’t see how it shines.”

 

“That would be sad,” Lauren agreed. Affection pulled at her chest, seeing Camila’s cheerful mood. Even more after the night before, Lauren was relieved to see Camila content and happy. “How would I keep your attention without anything shiny? You might get bored and wander off.”

 

Camila’s eyes narrowed. “I would not,” she said, taking offense. “I belong here. You said so, remember? You already said so.”

 

Camila’s fingers found their way to the hem of Lauren’s sweatshirt, collecting a fistful of fabric in her hand. She held on possessively, tilting her chin to Lauren as if challenging her to take it away – take what she’d given away.

 

Lauren had only been teasing, really, but it didn’t stop her from asking, “Forever, though? I mean, you can’t stay forever—”

 

Camila looked hurt.

 

“No,” Lauren interrupted herself immediately. “I mean, you can stay forever, you totally can, but someday you might want to, to… I wouldn’t want it, but you might…” Camila looked more unhappy with every word, and Lauren hit herself on the forehead at her own stupidity. “Please stay forever. That would be cool. We’ll have pancakes every morning. Do you want pancakes?”

 

She tried to step away, flustered, but Camila still had her hand curled around Lauren’s shirt and wouldn’t let her go.

 

“You want forever,” Camila said.

 

Lauren wasn’t sure if Camila was asking her or telling her but she nodded dumbly anyway, feeling like a jerk for ripping the smile off Camila’s face.

 

Camila’s smiles were precious, her good mood, her happiness. Every breath that puffed from her lips was one more than she might have had. Every breath Lauren wanted to protect, to protect Camila.

 

The thought of forever made her chest fill warmly, content and relieved at the thought of never being without Camila. At the same time, it burned and ached, the thought of never being without Camila, but never really  _being_  with Camila, either.

 

Bittersweet, but Lauren still knew the answer. “Forever. Of course, forever. You and me, okay?”

 

Camila and Lauren and the wall between them.

 

“Pancakes,” Lauren said, clearing her throat and trying to pull back. She found she couldn’t again.

 

Camila stood in front of her, swaying back and forth slightly with her fingers threaded through Lauren’s. Just waiting.

 

Lauren hadn’t even realized they were holding hands and she wondered whether she’d been the one to reach out or if Camila had. Camila was looking down to their clasped hands thoughtfully. Lauren tilted her head, trying to catch Camila’s eye. “I’m going to need that back. It’s, you know, my hand. I use it for stuff.”

 

When Camila glanced up, her gaze was too perceptive and she squeezed Lauren’s hand in hers. Lauren tried not to squirm under her stare.

 

“You could take it back,” Camila said, her voice gentle. “I would let you take it back, Lauren.”

 

“Take what back?” Lauren asked, biting at her lip. She didn’t think Camila meant her hand. Camila’s hold was a little too tender, her breath a little too close. Too much or not enough, Lauren wasn’t even sure.

 

“Promises don’t count if you don’t mean them,” Camila confided.

 

“Promises…?” Lauren trailed off, realization dawning.

 

 _I_ _’_ _ll never be that for you,_  she’d said.  _I promise._

 

She could take it back. Take back the promise she’d made. One Lauren didn’t know if she’d meant at all, even then. Her heart wrapped desperately around the idea. They could start all over again. It could be different. Why shouldn’t it be?

 

She could have what she desperately needed, she could have Camila. She could love Camila the way Camila wanted to be loved.

 

She could, but she didn’t know if she should. It still held her back.

 

“I’m sorry,” Lauren said under Camila’s unwavering gaze. She didn’t know if it was an apology for promising something she didn’t mean or an apology for not taking that promise back.

 

A smile twitched at Camila’s lips and she hummed a familiar song, twirling away from Lauren to flutter over the rainbow light reflecting around the kitchen window.

 

Lauren moved after her, standing at Camila’s side to watch the light reflect when she really wanted to be watching Camila. “I promise I’m your soul mate,” she said. Even she wasn’t sure if it was a rejection or acceptance.

 

Camila only hummed, her fingers dancing around the light.

 

“Hey,” Lauren said softly, catching Camila’s fingers where they were curling over the edge of the vase, edges of broken glass scraping her fingertips.

 

Camila pulled back, looking mildly disappointed.

 

And that was exactly why. Exactly why Lauren couldn’t give Camila everything she wanted. Because Camila didn’t think enough, wasn’t careful enough. Camila wanted Lauren to love her, and Camila wanted to cradle broken glass in her bare hands. Lauren couldn’t let the glass hurt Camila – Lauren couldn’t hurt Camila.

 

“It’s not that I don’t want you, you know,” Lauren said, rubbing her thumb against Camila’s wrist. “You know that. You know that better than I do. It’s just…I worry. You make me worry. It’s not that I don’t want you.”

 

“Don’t be scared,” Camila said, touching Lauren’s cheek.

 

An insistence that she wasn’t scared stuck to the tip of Lauren’s tongue, but she never let it go. What point was there in lying to Camila, anyway? Camila always knew before Lauren did, everything Lauren did.

 

“I am,” she admitted. Camila tilted her head, interested. “I worry that you won’t look out for yourself. That you’ll cut yourself on broken glass. That you’ll get confused while you’re chasing the stars someday and go back to that old building. That you’ll get sick when it rains, and that you’ll get heatstroke when it doesn’t. Hell, I worry you’ll fall down and drown in a lake—and there’s not even a lake for miles, but I worry about it anyway.” Lauren swallowed thickly, hand clutching around the hem of her sweatshirt. “I just worry about you. I never worried about anything this much before I met you.”

 

Lauren was thankful when she was pulled into a tight hug, Camila’s arms enfolded warmly around her. Camila’s hold was tender but surprisingly strong, shielding Lauren from all of the worries, even if the thing she worried about was Camila herself.

 

“I worry,” Lauren said, voice thick against Camila’s shoulder. “That you would let me hurt you if you thought I wanted to.”

 

Camila was so attached to Lauren, vulnerable with it. She’d let people hurt her before. She hadn’t known better than to let them hurt her. Lauren couldn’t be one of those people. She didn’t want to be something miserable from Camila’s past, she wanted to be Camila’s future.

 

Camila only smiled, sweet and gentle and still so vulnerable. “You wouldn’t want to hurt me.”

 

“I wouldn’t,” Lauren said, shaking her head fiercely. “I never, never would. But what if I did anyway? No one thinks what they’re doing is wrong when they do it, you know, even the biggest jerks and the dumbest idiots. I couldn’t… I don’t want to do that. I won’t do that.”

 

If she didn’t let Camila give everything of herself to Lauren like Lauren knew she would, then Lauren wouldn’t be able to hurt her, not like you hurt the people you loved.

 

“How do you know what the mistakes are?” Camila asked. “Shouldn’t they be the ones that feel wrong?”

 

Lauren found herself clinging tighter to Camila’s frame when Camila tried to step back. “Maybe. I don’t know.”

 

Camila pulled away despite Lauren’s protests. She felt exposed in the wide expanse of the kitchen, the air cold around her without Camila’s hold.

 

“Maybe…” Camila repeated, turning away. Her voice had gone dreamy and her hands found their way to the shards of glass again, not quite touching. Her eyes were half lidded as she stared out into the sunlight, a sparkle of a rainbow from the broken lamp reflecting on her cheek.

 

“It’s not that I don’t want you,” Lauren repeated dumbly.

 

Camila said nothing.

 

A sharp noise interrupted the silence, the ring of the doorbell.

 

Camila pulled back from the window, blinking rapidly. She glanced from Lauren down the hall, a tilt of her head that looked almost timid.

 

Lauren reached for her arm to hold on, to apologize, to simply touch, but Camila moved out of her grasp with a graceful easiness. She threw an odd expression over her shoulder as she moved down the hall towards the door. “Your friend is here.”

 

Frowning, Lauren followed her. “My what? Who?”

 

Camila’s eyes flickered to Lauren, indecipherable. Before Lauren could say anything else, Camila pulled the door open to a brown-haired guy standing on their doorstep. Lauren didn’t recognize him.

 

“Lauren?” asked the guy. He smiled nervously, white teeth, blue eyes and attractive features.

 

Lauren frowned, looking him up and down. “Uh? Who are you?”

 

The guy gave a quiet little cough, swaying on her feet. He had his hands in his pockets, dressed in a black leather jacket with silver studs Camila would have appreciated. He didn’t look like he was selling something, and he shouldn’t have known her name.

 

“Hi,” he said, lifting a hand to give a little wave. “Are you Lauren? I’m sorry if I have the wrong house…”

 

Lauren contemplated telling him he did have the wrong house. Rude, probably, but she didn’t really care. She wasn’t a fan of people invading on her space, especially not people who interrupted her time with Camila. Which was everyone, really.

 

“She is Lauren,” Camila informed him helpfully before Lauren could come up with a suitable alias.

 

“Hi,” the guy repeated again. “Good—great, I mean. I went to the wrong house before this.” He waved his hand to a house across the street. “This old man opened the door – it was awkward. I’m Eric, by the way. My grandmother sent me over. She said you’d want to have lunch together.”

 

Mrs. Smith’s grandson. In everything that had happened in the last week, Lauren had forgotten.

 

“Oh,” Lauren said.

 

Eric gave a nervous laugh, running a hand through his brown hair. “I know it’s kind of – my grandmother is always trying to set me up. She’s the meddling type.”

 

“Oh,” Lauren repeated.

 

There was no way she was going out with him anywhere now, today, after last night, after Camila close to her in their bed – but when she opened her mouth to say so, Camila spoke first.

 

“Do you want to be Lauren’s friend?” she asked, voice light and curious.

 

The blue-eyed guy stared for a moment, glancing between Camila and Lauren as if it was a joke he didn’t quite get. Lauren wasn’t sure she got it, either. “I… um, I guess I do? Well, yes, of course. My grandmother talks about her – about you…”

 

“I’m sure she does,” Lauren muttered, imagining all the things Mrs. Smith must have had to say about them. She didn’t know why this guy would be there in the first place, really, with everything that he’d probably heard.

 

Eric laughed. “Oh, that’s just how she shows her affection.”

 

“She must love me,” Lauren joked, shaking her head.

 

Eric nodded like he agreed.

 

“Oh god,” said Lauren, dizzy at the thought. “I think I need to lie down.”

 

Camila made a soft noise of concern, patting at Lauren’s shoulder. She curled her fingers over Lauren’s collarbone, a possessive hold. Lauren relaxed into it, expecting Camila to wave the guy off. Camila never liked it when Lauren left her alone, and she certainly wouldn’t like it if Lauren left her alone to go on a pseudo-date with a good looking guy.

 

So Lauren was a little shocked when Camila used the hand on her shoulder to propel her a step towards Eric and said, simply, “Bye, Lauren.”

 

“What?” Lauren asked dumbly, the world actually spinning oddly before her. The whole thing was dizzying. Camila’s hand still lingered on her shoulder blade and Lauren would have been comforted except for the way Camila was acting. “Bye, Lauren?”

 

“No,” Camila said, rolling her eyes, and Lauren was relieved for a moment before Camila continued. “ _You_ _’_ _re_  Lauren. I’m Camila. Bye, Lauren.”

 

Lauren blinked. “I don’t get it.”

 

“You’ll have a good time,” Camila was telling her, like it made any sense at all. “With your friend.”

 

Lauren was dumbfounded. “Are you serious?”

 

Camila stared back expectantly.

 

“Are you—you want me to go out with him,” Lauren said. “Really.”

 

“You’ll have fun,” Camila said. The smile on her lips was not quite happy but not quite sad. Though Lauren was used to Camila being confusing she usually had some small idea of what was going on. At the moment, she didn’t understand a thing behind Camila’s eyes.

 

“No,” Lauren said slowly. “I won’t.”

 

Eric cleared his throat quietly. Lauren glanced to him, utterly lost.

 

He gave a polite smile. “I thought—I’m kind of hungry? I’ve been waiting to eat because my grandmother said we’d have lunch—but if you don’t want to…”

 

“She wants to,” Camila told her, because apparently she had been misinformed. She stepped back from the door, back from Lauren, leaving a space open for Eric to come through.

 

With an uncertain smile, the guy stepped through the front door.

 

“You have so many sparkles,” Camila was saying, flicking at a stud on his jacket as Lauren trailed after them into the house, feeling numb.

 

From what Camila had told her the night before, to waking up with Camila that morning, to being so close to something moments before, and then suddenly for Camila to be encouraging Lauren to go on a date – Lauren was more confused than ever.

 

Eric had settled onto a chair in the living room and Camila was naming studs on his jacket.

 

“You look like a lamppost,” she informed him.

 

“I… do?” Eric looked baffled. “That’s not a very nice thing to say…”

 

“That was a compliment,” Lauren clarified as she slipped her fingers through Camila’s belt loop, dragging her out of the room with a gruff, “Excuse us.” Eric called something after them, but Lauren didn’t have the energy to wonder what.

 

She dragged Camila into the bathroom, shutting the door with deliberate gentleness and resting her head against it, cold wood against her forehead.

 

“Okay,” Lauren said, still facing the door. “What?”

 

“Yes?” Camila asked.

 

Lauren sighed, turning around to rest against the door. Camila was standing under the florescent bathroom light, brown hair soft around her face. She offered no explanation, as if wanting Lauren to leave to go on a date with a stranger was really not all that odd.

 

“I don’t understand,” Lauren said slowly.

 

As much as she felt confused by Camila, by everything sometimes, at least Lauren knew she didn’t want to go out on a date with some guy who she didn’t know, who she didn’t want to know.

 

Except Camila thought she did. Camila wanted her to?

 

It didn’t make sense. Camila never made sense – sometimes it was endearing, most of the time Lauren was used to it, and right now it felt completely unfair.

 

 _Can we go back to before the door rang,_  Lauren wanted to ask.  _I want to try again._

 

It seemed like Camila should have wanted to. Camila was always giving her second chances. But suddenly nothing was how it seemed.

 

“You want a friend, don’t you, Lolo?” Camila asked. There was something in her tone that was unreadable to Lauren, and she didn’t like that at all. “You should go with him. You’ll like it. I want you to.”

 

“No,” Lauren said, folding her arms. “I don’t want to. I’m not going.”

 

It was uncomfortable to say no. Lauren would do a lot for Camila but if Camila didn’t really want her to do it – and she couldn’t, she just couldn’t – it didn’t count as denying her something she wanted, not really.

 

As always, Camila was stubborn when she was trying to get her way, even when she didn’t really want it. “For me,” Camila said, ghosting a finger over Lauren’s arm. “Please, Lolo?”

 

Lauren shifted uncomfortably, still unhappy with denying Camila anything.

 

“I’ll go with you,” Lauren tried in compromise. “We’ll go out together, have lunch. Walking, obviously, no car. But it’ll be cool. You and me.”

 

Affection for the idea was already swelling in Lauren’s chest before Camila even had a chance to shake her head. Lauren frowned, folding her arms.

 

“Why not?” She asked, voice coming out whiny even to her own ear.

 

“You’ll see,” Camila said, smiling knowingly.

 

Lauren groaned, briefly considering banging her head against the wall. That was what disagreeing with Camila felt like anyway, trying to knock down a solid wall with your forehead. It just gave you a headache in the end.

 

“I’m not going,” Lauren reiterated, unfolding and refolding her arms.

 

Camila hummed, tilting her head and taking in Lauren’s stance. Lauren cleaned her throat and straightened up, trying to look firm and unwavering.

 

Unfortunately, Camila was unconvinced. “Come back soon, Lolo.”

 

“I’m not going!”

 

“I want you to,” Camila said, tilting her head and smiling peculiarly. Lauren didn’t like the way it looked on her, a smile that was not a smile.

 

“No,” Lauren said. “You don’t. I know you don’t.”

 

Camila raised an eyebrow. “Don’t I?”

 

“Nope,” Lauren said, sure of herself now. “You don’t like being alone any more than I like… You don’t want me to leave.”

 

The look in Camila’s eye was soft and exposed, fragile like Lauren could break her in her hands. It might have been an admission, but Camila didn’t let it go. “It will be good,” she insisted.

 

It didn’t feel good.

 

“Camila,” Lauren said, rubbing hands over her eyes tiredly. “What are you doing?”

 

Camila shrugged her shoulders slightly, looking small. “How do you know what the mistakes are?”

 

She knew Camila was making a mistake. At least she knew that. Lauren sighed, tucking Camila’s hair behind her ear. “I always knew you were a crazy person.”

 

It was true. Camila would let Lauren hurt her. Camila wouldn’t protect herself, would forget about herself in all her plans, in all the little, symbolic things Camila was so much more interested in than her own needs.

 

For whatever reason, because Camila thought she was still helping Lauren ‘see,’ or simply because Camila mistakenly thought Lauren would be happier with a stranger as a friend, Camila would send Lauren off with a guy who wasn’t her soul mate.

 

But Lauren didn’t have to let her. Camila had said it. Even if Camila would let Lauren hurt her, it didn’t mean Lauren would do it. Not ever.

 

Exiting the bathroom with Camila’s footsteps hesitant behind her, Lauren laid eyes on the guy again. He smiled at her, nervous and expectant. After a considering moment, Lauren said, “I hope you like pancakes.”

—–

Lauren was supposed to show him around so she did.

 

“That’s a tree,” she said, pointing through the kitchen window. “It’s not Camila’s favorite tree, but it’s probably in our top five.”

 

“I see,” Eric said, biting his lip. He was leaning against the wall, gazing out through the window with hesitant amusement.

 

Lauren nodded. “It has leaves, branches. You get it. Up there is a ceiling fan. Camila keeps hanging things from it and then they fly off when we turn it on.”

 

“Exciting,” Eric said, a twitch of a smile on his lips.

 

“Very,” Lauren agreed. “There’s a broken lawn ornament in the front yard, but you’ve probably seen enough. It’s a lot of excitement in one day.”

 

“Oh, I like exciting things,” Eric said, his voice amused. Lauren nodded.

 

“That’s Camila,” she said, pointing to Camila who was eating a spoonful of brown sugar. “She’s exciting, too.”

 

Eric laughed softly. “You’re cute, you know?”

 

“Huh?” Lauren asked, distracted when Camila poured half the bag of sugar into the pancake batter. “Yeah, she is. Camila, you didn’t measure it—”

 

She left Eric quietly laughing behind her to bat Camila’s hands away from the bowl, picking up the recipe. It was upside down.

 

Lauren rolled her eyes fondly. “There’s not even brown sugar in pancakes, Camz.”

 

“Yes,” Camila said, licking a spoon. She pointed to the bowl of sugar, butter, and mysteriously, two gummy bears. “It’s right there. See?”

 

Chuckling, Lauren dumped some flour in and hoped for the best. Eric had settled himself at the kitchen table, staring into the backyard. He didn’t seem particularly upset that Lauren hadn’t gone out to lunch with him. Camila fluttered around the kitchen with Lauren, assisting in what she seemed to think were all of Lauren’s mistakes even though Lauren was only following the directions. Camila only waved vaguely to the recipe to indicate where it did indeed say pancakes required sprinkles.

 

She was smiling again and it looked real this time. Lauren threw a puff of flour at her just to see Camila squeal and laugh, white on her nose.

 

Camila threw a gummy bear at her and Eric laughed louder from the table. It felt surprisingly normal, like they were an odd couple with a houseguest and everything.

 

The pancakes finished in a half cooked, half-goo state, colorful and surprisingly tasty. Lauren settled down at Camila’s side at the table, bumping her foot.

 

“My grandmother didn’t tell me you were attached,” Eric said, folding his napkin.

 

Lauren coughed, setting the glass of water she had in her hand down. “Uh…”

 

“It’s so funny, because I kind of thought—well, obviously not. Anyway, she talks about you enough, I’d think she would have mentioned that,” Eric laughed, shaking his head.

 

Lauren glanced at Camila out of the corner of her eye but Camila was contently ignoring all conversation for applying syrup to her pancakes in artful shapes that probably had some deep and symbolic meaning.

 

Lauren thought one of them looked like a penguin.

 

She couldn’t tell him she wasn’t attached.

 

She was attached to Camila, she was attached to being with Camila. If she didn’t know what it meant, if she didn’t know how it had happened, Lauren still knew it was true.

 

She was Camila’s. She knew Camila was hers, too.

 

And, Lauren realized, there really wasn’t any decision to make beyond that. As much as she did worry about it, about Camila, there was nothing for Lauren to change. There was no choice, good or bad, and there was no protecting Camila from any hurt Lauren might cause her.

 

Everything already  _was_.

 

Whether she accepted it or not, Camila was set in waiting for Lauren no matter how long Lauren took. Camila was Lauren’s soul mate.

 

Even a stranger could see it, so why shouldn’t Lauren?

 

It didn’t make a difference if she admitted it out loud, if they acted on it. It would always be there. It had always been there.

 

“Yeah, I am,” Lauren said slowly. “I’m attached.”

 

Eric stopped, fork halfway to his mouth. “I know? I mean, I didn’t ask?”

 

Lauren blinked. “Oh. Right.”

 

Camila was watching Lauren from below her eyelashes, hair falling over her eyes like she could hide her curious gaze. Lauren bumped her knee under the table, eliciting a content smile from Camila’s lips.

 

Lauren felt very attached.


	29. Butterfly Touch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

“You know that movie you like,” Lauren said, “where the guy buys his girlfriend a star? I would totally do that for you.”

 

Camila’s head was tilted to the sky, Lauren’s sunglasses balanced on her nose. She would have been watching the stars, naming them because they were all hers already, but it was still only midday. The leaves of the tree Camila was sitting under cast shadows across her skin.

 

“Lauren, you cannot own stars,” Camila told her, eyes still on the sky.

 

Camila had settled under the tree immediately after Eric had left, staring up at the sky serenely as Lauren watched her through the window, feeling anything but serene.

 

After admitting it, after finally acknowledging how entwined she was with Camila, how entwined she wanted to be with Camila, Lauren wasn’t sure what to do. Where did they go from here?

 

Did it change everything? Did it change anything at all?

 

She shifted her weight, clutching the tiny thing in her hand behind her back.

 

“You do,” Lauren said, taking a tentative step towards Camila. “All the stars. They all shine just for you.”

 

Camila made a soft, curious noise. She leaned her head against the bark of the tree, looking up at Lauren through the shades of bug-like sunglasses. She rubbed the sole of her bare foot against the grass in Lauren’s direction, lifting it delicately to kick at her knee.

 

Palm clenched and sweaty, Lauren moved to sit at Camila’s side. Their shoulders brushed as she leaned against the tree trunk. Camila didn’t say anything – she’d been unusually quiet since Eric had left, even leaving Lauren alone in the house to go commune with her hidden stars. Lauren wasn’t sure if that was a good sign or a bad one.

 

“I meant what I said.” Lauren trained her eyes on the sky as she spoke, the exact spot between two clouds where she thought Camila was looking. “About being attached to you. I meant it.”

 

“I know,” Camila said easily. Her head rolled towards Lauren’s, but she didn’t look over.

 

Lauren had been thinking about it for the last hour, time that flew by with the guitar in her hands, the notes of Camila’s song. The song that still didn’t have an end. Lauren was beginning to realize it never would have an end.

 

So Lauren had played the song that didn’t end until a string had snapped under her hand. Bent and twisted on the floor, Lauren had noticed how it shined.

 

“I’m attached to you like soul mates are attached to each other,” Lauren said. She bit her lip anxiously, turned the thing over in her closed fist. “Like—”

 

“I know,” Camila repeated, cutting Lauren off.

 

A smile tugged at Lauren’s lips despite the frantic feelings that fluttered in her chest. Maybe because of those feelings. “You know everything, don’t you.”

 

“Yes,” Camila agreed. She was trying to look all-knowing but Lauren could see the smile on Camila’s face too, the way she caught her lower lip between her teeth happily.

 

Lauren wanted to kiss it, the suppressed little smile and the curve of Camila’s mouth.

 

“Hey.” fingers grazed the delicate skin behind Camila’s ear. Lauren tilted Camila’s head gently towards her, stroking her thumb over Camila’s nose to lift the sunglasses up. “I have something for you.”

 

Camila’s eyes were curious as Lauren revealed them, excitement already brimming over. Camila treasured everything Lauren had ever given her – her sweatshirt, her shoes, a quarter she still carried around with her like a precious thing. Lauren’s heart.

 

The thin metal was warm from being clutched in Lauren’s hand. She squeezed it one last time before extending her closed fist to Camila.

 

Camila made a delighted noise, reaching out to uncurl Lauren’s fingers from around the tiny thing.

 

It glinted in the sunlight and Camila gasped. She stroked a finger over the smooth surface, her thumb caressing Lauren’s palm as she did.

 

The metal was curled in close loops, the sharp tips of the guitar string curled upwards to keep from scraping Camila’s skin.

 

“It’s a ring,” Lauren explained as Camila picked it from her hand. “I made it for you. Since we’re soul mates. Sometimes soul mates give each other rings.”

 

Air cooled Lauren’s sweaty palm as Camila examined the simple ring. Lauren had painstakingly curled the snapped guitar string into something resembling a ring, one tip curled up to form a vague star-like shape (which really looked more like an amoeba) where a stone would have been in any other ring.

 

Camila turned it over in her hand, mesmerized. “For me?”

 

Everything for Camila.

 

Lauren waited, silent until Camila’s eyes were on her, curious and hopeful and so many fragile things.

 

“I want to take the promise back,” Lauren said, her voice rough to her own ear. “And give you a new one. A real one.”

 

Camila’s hand curled over Lauren’s t-shirt, clingy like Lauren might get up and take everything away before she’d even given it to Camila. “What will you promise?”

 

The words were too much, too many things Lauren couldn’t even describe. All the feelings that swelled in her chest that had no name, only  _Camila_.

 

Instead she leaned closer to Camila, a promise in her lips.

 

Camila’s eyes were wide, not surprised but something else, something much deeper and much more breakable.

 

A hair’s width separated them, Camila’s breath puffing against Lauren’s lips. When Camila shifted forward, their lips almost brushing, almost, Lauren couldn’t stop herself from seeking the reassurance one more time, the tiny uncertainty left within her.

 

“What if it’s not what you think it is?” she asked, not pulling away from Camila but not pressing in yet, either. She couldn’t  _not_  ask, anxiety and excitement and anticipation churning up to a sick, euphoric feeling inside of her. “What if… what if I’m not what you think I am?”

 

Camila shook her head vigorously, hair whipping across Lauren’s face. The shape of the thin ring pressed into Lauren’s collarbone as Camila held on. “You’re my Lolo. My soul loves yours.”

 

Soft breath puffed against Lauren’s lips one last time before Camila pulled back. Her clutching fingers disappeared from Lauren’s t-shirt, no longer holding on. Lauren clasped Camila’s other hand in hers, not letting her go.

 

The look in Camila’s eyes was hesitant, insecurity Lauren rarely saw. “I could wait longer,” she offered.

 

Wait longer – if Lauren still wasn’t ready, if Lauren still wasn’t sure, if Lauren still didn’t  _get_  it.

 

Camila would just keep waiting.

 

Years from now, Lauren knew Camila would still be waiting if she had to. When Lauren walked with a cane and Camila befriended that cane and gave it a name, they would still be soul mates whether Lauren acknowledged it or not.

 

Camila would keep waiting, but Lauren didn’t think she could anymore. Every cell in her body, every beat of her heart, all of her wanted Camila. All of her loved Camila, all of her needed all of Camila.

 

“You’re not lost,” Lauren said, meeting Camila’s gaze. “You’re not lost, and you’re not broken, and you’re not confused…”

 

“No,” Camila said, ever simple. “I’m here. With you.”

 

It was all Lauren needed, for Camila to be there.

 

Lauren leaned in again and Camila kept her gaze, vulnerable and waiting, hoping, wanting. Lauren wanted to give her everything.

 

Their lips met in a sweet kiss. Camila responded instantly, lips parting under Lauren’s and arms wrapping around Lauren’s neck. Holding on, holding her as Lauren held Camila. Everything Lauren needed, everything she’d never known she needed, in the soft touch of Camila’s lips against hers.

 

When the kiss broke Camila was pink and Lauren felt dizzy though she didn’t know why. She was sure she could breathe Camila forever.

 

“I love you,” Lauren whispered with what little breath Camila hadn’t stolen away. “I think I always have.”

 

Camila smiled, glowing with life and so happy. “I knew.”

—–

They stayed under the tree until the stars came out.

 

Camila closed her eyes and rested against Lauren’s shoulder, tired from the night they’d stayed up, from the nightmares Lauren promised herself she would protect Camila from now. Maybe tired from waiting.

 

Lauren held her close and watched the stars that shined for Camila, the stars she’d never seen before she knew Camila.

 

It was hard to remember now what it had been like before she’d known Camila.

 

Lauren’s heart fluttered with the thought that soon maybe she’d have forgotten what it felt like not to have all of Camila.

 

The wind gusted by and Camila made a soft noise of disapproval, blinking awake and nuzzling Lauren’s shoulder. She yawned, peeking up at Lauren.

 

Camila’s hair was ruffled in the wind, her eyes sleepy and half lidded. Lauren felt lightheaded with the knowledge that she was allowed to touch, to kiss, to hold Camila like she’d always wanted to.

 

She pressed their lips together for the second time. Camila’s eyes were wide and awake when Lauren pulled back.

 

“Hello,” Lauren said, smiling dumbly.

 

Camila tilted her head, curious, and bumped their lips together again. Lauren smiled wider.

 

“A kiss for hello,” Camila said, thoughtful.

 

Lauren drew back, moving to stand because Camila was cold and they really should go inside. She took Camila’s hand, walking back into the house.

 

“Do you feel like singing?” Lauren asked, squeezing Camila’s hand in hers as she closed the door. “I just have to put another string on—”

 

“I’m going outside,” Camila announced abruptly.

 

Lauren blinked, doorknob still in her hand.

 

Camila gave a cheerful little bounce on her toes. She swayed back and forth slightly, seemingly perfectly happy.

 

“But it’s cold,” Lauren hedged. It was safe inside their house together, close and comfortable. She wanted to bask in Camila’s company, togetherness that was the same and so different. “And we were just outside…”

 

Camila stared expectantly.

 

Affection for Camila’s stubbornness inevitably won out. Lauren sighed, shaking her head with a smile. “You want to watch the stars from the roof, or—”

 

“Outside,” Camila repeated. She took a few steps backwards towards the door, still watching Lauren.

 

Lauren waited, curious. Camila took another step back, opening the door with her hand behind her without turning away from Lauren. The door swung open and Camila took another half step, standing on the door frame, and moved no further.

 

Fondness pulled at Lauren’s heart. “Okay, what are you doing?”

 

“Goodbye,” Camila said, leaning her body towards Lauren without moving from the door frame.

 

“What do you mean?” When Lauren stepped into her reach, Camila hooked her arms around Lauren’s shoulders and leaned in, close and warm.

 

“Goodbye,” Camila said, nudging her. “Goodbye?”

 

“Why are—oh.” Lauren grinned, bumping their lips together without actually kissing her. “You can have a kiss goodbye as long as you don’t actually leave.”

 

With a look of pure awe, Camila pressed her lips hesitantly to Lauren’s, malleable and soft under Lauren’s touch.

 

A kiss for goodbye, and neither of them would leave.

 

For the rest of the day Camila happily went about finding new reasons to kiss Lauren. Goodbye kisses and hello kisses. Thank you kisses and you’re welcome kisses. Good morning kisses and good night kisses – though only a matter of hours passed. ‘Pass me the salt’ kisses and ‘that’s not the salt, Camz’ kisses.

 

Lauren was ecstatic to give her every one. Her stomach flipped happily, her heart fluttering, so many new feelings she could only feel for Camila.

 

She asked Camila to pass the salt three times and poured so much of it on her meal it was inedible, but Lauren didn’t care. When Camila walked into the family room with Elvis in her arms after being gone for only a few moments to find the cat, Lauren quickly jumped up to give her a kiss hello.

 

Camila looked supremely pleased with this, and promptly stepped out of the room and came back in for another kiss.

 

“You don’t have to trick me, you know,” Lauren teased, snaking her arms around Camila’s waist and leaning against the door frame. “I don’t need a reason to kiss you. Right?”

 

Camila looked like she agreed wholeheartedly. Lauren’s heart lifted at the look in Camila’s eyes, at her own words. It felt so good, letting go of everything except Camila, never letting go of Camila.

 

“Because you love me,” Camila said, beaming. Her fingers curled around a stand of Lauren’s hair, twirling it happily. “Lauren loves me.”

 

It was true. It was true and admitting it only made Lauren feel braver, safer, like all the worries had gone with the words.

 

So Lauren gave Camila a kiss hello.

 

A kiss for yesterday, and all the times Lauren had not kissed her.

 

A kiss for today, and all the times Lauren now could.

 

And a kiss for tomorrow, and everything that would come.

—–

When they curled into bed together that night, too lazy to change into their pajamas, Lauren knew she would never be cold again. Camila would never be cold again. The knowledge warmed Lauren’s heart. Camila’s closeness warmed her.

 

Her hands were heated on Lauren’s neck, her lips pressed into a kiss on the edge of Lauren’s mouth, still so new and so familiar, too.

 

“A kiss for good morning?” Lauren asked, stroking Camila’s hair soft behind her ear.

 

Camila shook her head knowingly. “Because you’re Lauren,” Camila said. “A kiss because you’re Lauren.”

 

Lauren swallowed thickly, heart swelling in her chest.  _Lauren_. She got a kiss because she was Lauren. She got Camila because she was Lauren.

 

Only her. Her name meant something. Being Lauren was special. Special like Camila.

 

Hopeful fingers were wandering Lauren’s stomach, Camila’s fingernail tracing her skin in artful shapes.

 

Camila was close like Lauren hadn’t allowed her to be before. Her touch was all over, good and  _right_. Camila slipped her hands under Lauren’s t-shirt, pulling it up to take it off and Lauren let her, Lauren could let her. Her breath was warm against Lauren’s skin.

 

Lauren’s throat felt thick and her skin hot. A wonderful feeling, burning up in Camila’s vibrancy.

 

Camila took Lauren’s hand, and then she placed it under her lifted t-shirt on the delicate skin of her hip.

 

“Oh,” Lauren whispered.

 

“Love me,” Camila said, plain and simple. It was one of the few truths Lauren was sure of.

 

“I do,” Lauren said, stroking her thumb up and down Camila’s side. She hooked her fingers around the waistband, holding on. “I already do.”

 

“Love me like you want me.” There was something in Camila’s tone, a demand and a question, too.

 

There was no need to question.

 

Camila’s head was free of bows, hair tucked behind one ear where Lauren had brushed it aside. There was a mole below her lip that Lauren was impossibly fond of, a tiny scar on her eyebrow that Lauren wanted to kiss. Even the tip of her nose was irresistible to Lauren. Camila’s skin was silky under Lauren’s touch and she never wanted to stop touching, to let go of Camila.

 

“I want you,” Lauren said, voice raspy. She’d never said anything more true. She swallowed, hand ghosting over Camila’s stomach. “Are you sure?”

 

An indulgent smile flicked across Camila’s lips. “Yes. Please?”

 

“Yes,” Lauren agreed emphatically, wrapping her arms around Camila and pulling her close.

 

Camila laughed happily and grasped the back of Lauren’s neck to pull her in for a demanding kiss.

 

Camila tugged at the fabric between them, whispering annoyed things to it about how soul mates shouldn’t be separated, while Lauren let her fingers wander all over Camila, all the places she’d never touched. Her fingers stroked across Camila’s skin because she could, because Camila wanted it.

 

It was euphoric, having all of Camila, being allowed to take everything. To give everything of herself, and know that it would make Camila happy. Everything of Camila that Lauren hadn’t had, hadn’t allowed herself to have, not just parts of Camila but all of her, everything of each other.

 

“I told you you’d see,” Camila said into her touch.

 

When Lauren looked, she saw what had been there all along.

 

Lauren saw Camila. Everything of Camila. Vulnerable, naked and pure Camila.

 

She saw the same Camila she’d always seen. Brown eyes that were oddly bright, lips that curved into irresistible smiles. A touch that made Lauren feel things she never had before. A voice that Lauren wanted to hear all the time, singing and laughing and talking about the trees and the stars and the rust on the side of an old tin can.

 

Just Camila.

 

“You’re beautiful,” Lauren told her. “I see you and you’re so freaking beautiful.”

 

Camila smiled, radiant with life and happiness that Lauren had given her. Lauren knew this was right, being with Camila. She’d never known she was meant for anything, she’d never known she had a soul mate, but she knew she had Camila, and Camila had her.

 

It was beautiful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> JUST ONE MORE CHAPTER GUYS AHHH


	30. A Beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lauren never planned on living in the house she lived in. She never planned on working the job she worked. She never planned on befriending a strange girl named Camila, either.  
>   
> Lauren never planned a lot of things.  
> 

The garden grew.

 

Camila had always told her it would, so it was ironic that Lauren was the first to notice.

 

Lauren was having a silent but companionable conversation with a light bulb that was only half buried in the garden (so the bulb could see the sun and would have a positive role model, Camila had explained) when she noticed a sprout of green poking out of the soil.

 

In the lumpy dirt between one stagnant seed and the next a tiny life had begun to grow.

 

Lauren stared.

 

The tiny sprout simply sat there defiantly.  _I told you so,_  it seemed to say.

 

“It was day and now it is dark,” Camila mused as she teetered on the doorstep, one of Lauren’s hands resting protectively on Camila’s hip and the other cupped over her eyes. “Time moves so quickly.”

 

Lauren tapped her thumb against Camila’s forehead with a soft snort. “There’s no way I’m falling for that.”

 

Even standing behind Camila, Lauren could tell she was pouting. “My eyelids aren’t pretty, Lauren.”

 

“You think everything is pretty,” Lauren teased. “Stop trying to peek. You’ll get to see it in a minute.”

 

Camila would be thrilled when she saw the tiny plant, Lauren was sure. Of all the things Camila was so sure would grow in the garden, the ones she insisted were growing even when no one could see them, something finally was. Something she could touch.

 

Lauren wasn’t sure if it was the thought of Camila’s excitement over the plant that did it or if being around Camila had simply made Lauren appreciate the strangest, smallest things, but it made her heart flutter happily too.

 

With an encouraging push against Camila’s back Lauren led them through the door frame and across the yard as Camila continued to make fussy noises at her.

 

“Lauren,” she said, tone scolding. “I can’t see with your hand over my eyes.”

 

Lauren laughed, twisting over Camila’s shoulder to place a kiss on her lips. As expected, Camila melted under Lauren’s affection, docile and malleable as Lauren led them the final steps across the grass.

 

When they were both settled on the lawn Lauren cleared her throat. “Okay. Okay, are you ready to see?”

 

Camila made an impatient noise, a clear indication she’d been ready to see the surprise ages ago, and Lauren swept her hand away.

 

The sun was shining; warm rays that made Camila squint. She looked around for a long moment, taking in their whole back yard. The yard was no different than usual, yellowed grass and peeling paint on the fence. Camila looked supremely impressed with it.

 

She turned to Lauren with a radiant smile. “Oh, I like it,” she whispered, nudging Lauren’s cheek with her nose.

 

Of course Camila would. Lauren laughed warmly, tilting her chin downwards. “ _There_ , Camz.”

 

There in the dirt of their garden was the seedling. The first of the rose seeds they’d planted together was beginning to grow, a tiny bud of green. A diminutive beginning that would someday bloom.

 

Camila reached out a hesitant hand with a strange expression. Her fingers brushed the tip of the plant.

 

“It’s a rose,” Lauren said. “From the seeds we planted together. You said we’d grow roses someday, and… it’s growing for us. Right?”

 

Camila’s breath caught in her throat, her fingers just barely brushing the plant before pulling back, caressing Lauren’s cheek with the same tenderness. She sniffed loudly but there was no telltale shimmer to her eyes and Lauren breathed a sigh of relief. “Yes,” Camila said, her voice unusually serious. “For us. Just for you and me, Lolo.”

 

It was just a little sprout of a flower. It might die the next day from lack of watering or more likely because Camila got overenthusiastic and drowned it. It might end up being a lost weed instead of a vibrant rose bush.

 

Lauren didn’t care and she knew Camila wouldn’t either.

 

“I like it,” Camila told her, nodding decisively. She waved, a grand gesture to encompass the rest of the yard – peeling fence, yellow grass, a stolen lawn gnome, the trees, the sky, and even Lauren. An inclusion of it all.

 

The sun was so bright it was probably burning Camila’s skin. Lauren had forgotten her sunglasses inside. It was too hot, too dry. Mrs. Smith kept yelling at her about the fence lately. She was pretty sure she could see her over it now, watching them through her binoculars.

 

The dying grass was itchy against Lauren’s wrist as she took Camila’s hand. “I like it, too.”

—–

They performed concerts for the bed of roses that grew.

 

The leaves and petals swayed in the wind, a floral dance. The birds that settled in the trees nearby, and the ants crawling on the stones by the flowers, and the stray cats lazing on old lawn chairs – all of them seemed to blend and dance with the music.

 

Sometimes Eric popped his head over the fence separating their houses, watching with a knowing smile on his face.

 

Sometimes Mrs. Smith joined him, the look on her face more a sneer than a smile. Camila always waved to her adoring audience. There were wide cracks between each slat of the old fence and sometimes Lauren could see Mrs. Smith tapping her foot to the music.

 

Ever enthusiastic, Camila jumped up to dance wildly around the yard, tripping over the planter, flailing when a sprinkler came on, and always managing to make the whole crazy thing look completely intentional.

 

And always Camila’s wild, seemingly aimless dancing brought her right back to Lauren, arms wrapping over Lauren’s shoulders as the music paused for a slow kiss.

—–

“Louder,” Lauren said, the word odd on her lips. “Louder?”

 

Mrs. Smith stood on the front porch with her arms folded, a familiar mixture of superiority and disdain on her face.

 

“Louder like… louder?” Lauren asked, glancing sideways to Camila. “The opposite of ‘Turn your music down this instant’?”

 

“Haven’t you been schooled?” Mrs. Smith shot back. “You should look into expanding your vocabulary, Miss Jauregui. Honestly.”

 

Befuddled, Lauren edged towards Camila. Camila teetered and bumped their shoulders together, cheerful and much too calm in the face of Mrs. Smith’s request. Lauren was fairly sure the apocalypse was coming, but of course Camila wouldn’t let something so trivial bother her.

 

“I can sing louder,” Camila offered, beaming at Mrs. Smith. Her usual bad tempter seemed to fizzle out at Camila’s disarming smile. “And we take song requests.”

 

“We do?” Lauren asked, blinking. Camila nodded seriously.

 

“You sing whatever you please,” Mrs. Smith said, ever the generous soul. “Just as long as it is louder. I can hardly hear you from inside my house, can I? Please do try to be more respectful of your neighbors.”

 

Lauren was left gaping as the old woman gave them a curt nod and swept off again, head held high and proud.

 

Camila was left glowing. “I think she likes us.”

 

“Camz,” Lauren said, wide eyed and horrified. “You are talking crazy.”

 

Camila just patted her on the shoulder. She tramped back through the house, Lauren shuffling behind. By the garden, where Camila and Lauren had been playing their music before the doorbell had interrupted and the world had tilted on its side, Lauren’s guitar was still lying on the ground.

 

The guitar was well loved now, natural under Lauren’s hands. It had been left on a wall in her grandmother’s abandoned room for over a year, but after she and Camila had begun to make music together, the guitar had found its place again.

 

Camila had her fingers curled around the guitar’s neck, lifting it to press it wordlessly back into Lauren’s arms.

 

Lauren strummed a chord, Camila lifted her voice, and the roses began to sway to the music.

 

“Louder,” Camila hummed into Lauren’s ear, making it sound like just another lyric in their continuous song. “The whole world is listening.”

 

Camila was draped warmly over her shoulders and Lauren didn’t need the whole world but she played louder anyway.

 

Camila ended up being right, of course. Lauren couldn’t say she was surprised anymore. If Camila declared the sky was falling it was probably time to build an underground bunker.

 

Eric had a funny way of calming her grandmother’s usual spiteful wrath into a quiet gurgle of vague disapproval. Lauren refused to believe the woman liked her or Camila. Her disdain was simply being directed in a new way.

 

Instead of disapproving of her music, Mrs. Smith highly disapproved of Lauren’s laziness, because she really should be playing her guitar and singing more often. Practice made perfect, after all.

 

Instead of disapproving of the way Camila spoke, Mrs. Smith disapproved of the way Camila ended conversations. Particularly her tendency to find something she’d much rather be doing in the middle of one.

 

Lauren was pretty sure Mrs. Smith was developing conspiracy theories about everything Camila said. She seemed to think she was revealing some secretive gossip to her in code. Sometimes she even carried a notepad around with her, following them around and scribbling furiously.

 

Camila was pleased with the attention. By the mischievous looks she gave her, Lauren could tell Camila was going out of her way to lead her on with mentions of mystical house plants and a ghost in one of the neighbor’s attics. Mrs. Smith seemed to find it particularly interesting that Camila spoke with the stars.

 

Camila seemed to find it particularly interesting that Mrs. Smith did not.

 

“I don’t understand,” Camila said. Lauren didn’t think she’d ever heard those words from Camila’s lips before. She looked puzzled, chin resting on her folded arms as she scrutinized Lauren.

 

“Most people can’t make conversation with the sky,” Lauren said. She yawned and stretched, leaning back in her chair. Camila leaned further over the table in response. The curious tilt of Camila’s head and her ruffled bed head, pillow lines still visible on her cheek, was far too endearing for Lauren’s own good.

 

“Why not?”

 

“The stars only want to talk to you, I guess,” Lauren offered. “You’re kind of special like that.”

 

Of all the ways Lauren worried for Camila, that wasn’t one of them. It was as natural for Camila to befriend and communicate with the stars as it would have been strange for anyone else to do it.

 

“Lonely,” Camila murmured. She was tracing an intricate pattern on the table’s surface with her index finger, nail scraping the varnished wood. “Everyone must be so alone.”

 

Lauren swallowed, her hand clutching in the fabric of her t-shirt involuntarily. For how perfectly Camila fit with Lauren, how affectionate and needy for attention she was, it was always hard to imagine what it must have been like for Camila. Alone and everything silent in an empty building. Her companion had been dead, though perhaps Camila hadn’t known it, and Camila had said herself that she’d felt like she only had half her soul.

 

So alone that even a part of herself was missing, a part of her heart – Lauren realized she did know what it felt like after all. She knew silence. The kind of silence where you could hear a pin drop but there was no one there to drop one.

 

“They’re not lonely,” Lauren spoke up, almost surprised at the words from her own lips. “People have each other to talk to. You have me. And your stars too,” Lauren added. “But you have me.”

 

“Oh,” Camila said softly.

 

Lauren had never thought of loneliness before she met Camila. She never asked for Camila, never hoped for Camila. She’d never known she was missing something— _someone_ — at all.

 

Where Camila had been lonely, Lauren had never realized she was. She hadn’t realized there was anything else. She was lucky Camila had known, otherwise Lauren would have never felt what it was like to have everything she needed, to have Camila.

 

It wouldn’t even have bothered her, Lauren realized, because she hadn’t known there was anything better. The thought of that bothered her now.

 

Across from her, Camila’s chin was still resting on one folded arm, the other reaching tentatively across the table. Lauren took it, squeezing.

 

Camila brought Lauren’s hand up to her lips, whispering a secret to her palm.

 

Lauren stroked her thumb over Camila’s lower lip. The silence that enveloped around them was anything but lonely.

—–

They still sat outside the dark window some nights, watching a shadow move. Sometimes the shadow would stop in front of the window, watching them in return.

 

Camila didn’t call it chasing the stars anymore.

 

“We don’t need to chase the stars,” Camila told Lauren when she asked. They were sitting on the roof as dusk set in. Camila tilted her head to the dulling sky. “They’re right there. Do you see?”

 

“I see a plane,” Lauren said, stretching her arms out behind her head to stretch out on the roof. She felt at home there now, no longer afraid of falling. Eyes on the sky, Lauren frowned. “A really low flying plane. Do you think it’s crashing? I think it might be crashing.”

 

Camila sighed, a sad sound that declared her eternal suffering to the world.

 

Lauren just snickered. “I don’t know how you got stuck with me either. Poor Camila.”

 

“Yes, true,” Camila agreed too readily.

 

Lauren frowned. Camila hadn’t had to agree  _that_  quickly.

 

Happily, Camila rolled over on top of her. Lauren made an indignant noise, sputtering as she grasped at the material of Camila’s shirt. Camila just squirmed around until she found a position where they fit comfortably together.

 

She pressed little kisses to Lauren’s cheek, the line of her jaw and Lauren’s closed eyes, silly smiles in between each kiss.

 

“That’s unfair,” Lauren complained half-heartedly, promptly returning the affection with a hand placed around the back of Camila’s neck. The roof slates were pressing into Lauren’s shoulder and back from their combined weight and she didn’t care at all.

 

“All is fair in love and war,” Camila declared once she’d softened Lauren up into the perfect consistency for a comfortable body pillow. “And you like it, anyway.”

 

“Lies,” Lauren whispered, her heart in her throat as she met Camila’s gaze.

 

“Your eyes are stars and constellations.” Camila said lovingly and dropped her head onto Lauren’s shoulder, looking up at her sweet and silly.

 

The roof was a favorite place now, stars and smog above. The wind ruffled their hair and Camila’s tickled Lauren’s nose, the scent of a sugary shampoo Camila had picked out after rearranging an entire display of hair products at the store. Lauren thought she smelled like a pastry. Lauren had always really liked pastries.

 

“It’s Wednesday,” Lauren said after awhile. Lately she’d been trying to work out a schedule between them that they could both live on. Camila was firmly insisting on two Sundays instead of a Monday.

 

“Yes,” Camila agreed. Lauren grinned at the stars above, pleased. It felt more like being in the same world when they were on the same schedule and every time was a tiny step closer to Camila.

 

“We visit Ben on Wednesdays,” Lauren reminded her. “You want to go? It’s getting dark.”

 

“I want to go to the moon today,” Camila decided instead.

 

Lauren combed her fingers over Camila’s back, her thin shirt not nearly warm enough for the windy night. “The graveyard is closer.”

 

Ben was still a stone in the graveyard. Though they’d met a living man named Ben, Camila still preferred the grave. She had, anyway. Lately she wasn’t as interested in visiting it. Lauren had to think that was a good thing.

 

“It’s only closer because you think it is,” Camila told her wisely. She was now playing with different strands of Lauren’s hair – kissing them all because Camila didn’t want any of them to feel unloved. She was always careful to distribute her attention evenly.

 

The ring Lauren had made for Camila caught in the tangles of her hair for a moment before Camila twirled it out again, adjusting it on her finger with a concerned expression.

 

“No,” Lauren said, watching Camila poke the ring fretfully before she was satisfied with its safety. “I don’t think that. We’ll go to the moon instead.”

 

Camila made a soft sound of agreement as she squirmed once more, settling down with her ringer finger resting safely on Lauren’s chest, right over her heart.

—–

The next time they visited a graveyard it wasn’t for Ben.

 

Lauren’s grandmother’s favorite flower had been lilies. She didn’t think she’d mind one of the roses they had picked from the garden, though.

 

It was the first time she visited her grave after the funeral two years ago.

 

It was the first time Camila willingly got into a car.

 

Lauren had been thinking about her grandmother lately. She had been the only member of her family she’d been close to – the only person before Camila at all, really. She’d told her she could be a rock star and then she’d died.

 

And, as Camila would tell her, then she’d thrown her away. Thrown the memories out with the trash and the apple cores. It had been a lifetime since she’d met Camila, and Lauren didn’t want to throw anything away anymore.

 

But as Camila stood in the driveway, the mass of Lauren’s truck looming over her, it didn’t seem like such a good idea anymore. Camila didn’t look sure of herself either, her thumb to her lips as she nibbled on her nail.

 

“We could just plant the rose somewhere,” Lauren said, as if that made any sense. “Instead of—you know. Instead.”

 

Camila made a sound like she might have spoken if she weren’t too busy nibbling her nail polish off. Lauren could feel the anxiety practically radiating off of Camila’s form. It made Lauren anxious too, even more than she already had been.

 

The cemetery where her grandmother had been buried was remote and too far away to walk to. Lauren had always been glad for it, the distance making it easier for her to push her out of her mind. That wasn’t the case now, and Camila’s sporadic shivering made Lauren wish she hadn’t suggested it.

 

“Hey,” she said, taking hold of Camila’s wrist. She hooked her pinky around Camila’s, a promise. “Never mind. It doesn’t really matter. Let’s go back inside.”

 

She pulled gently but Camila didn’t follow and Lauren stopped only a step back from the car.

 

“It matters,” Camila disagreed. Although she wasn’t moving away from the car she certainly wasn’t moving towards it, either. Neither was Lauren.

 

“It doesn’t matter this much.” Lauren squeezed Camila’s hand, giving another encouraging tug. Camila was going nowhere, her feet rooted to the ground. Lauren sighed. “She’s still going to be dead even if we drive out to the graveyard. I know that. It’s not going to change anything.”

 

Camila squeezed her hand in return, the hold less reassuring than it was punishing. Lauren’s hand throbbed in her tight grip. “It matters,” she repeated stubbornly. “She matters to you. You can’t throw that away.” Camila turned beseeching eyes on her. “You can’t.”

 

Lauren wasn’t exactly sure why it was so important to Camila, only that Camila got upset when she thought Lauren was throwing something away – from a tin can to a memory.

 

She wasn’t exactly sure why, but she knew it was Camila’s way of taking care of her, and Lauren submitted to it willing. Camila let Lauren look after her, so it was only fair.

 

“Besides,” Camila said, squaring her shoulders. “You said I could meet her. You already said.”

 

Lauren would have protested that all that was left for Camila to meet was a tombstone, but she knew it wasn’t true. Camila would be delighted to meet a tombstone.

 

“I know, but… The car, though.” It worried Lauren, a hand clenched tight around her heart, to think of trapping Camila in a car. It worried her too, to think of going to see her grandmother’s grave without Camila. She wouldn’t go without Camila.

 

“I can do it,” Camila said, squeezing Lauren’s hand once more before abruptly letting go.

 

Camila approached the truck in three graceful strides, reaching forward with purpose. Hand around the door handle, Camila pulled the passenger door open and climbed in. It clicked shut behind her. Camila sat, waiting in the car for Lauren.

 

Waiting in the car for Lauren to visit Lauren’s grandmother's  grave.

 

“Right,” Lauren said, swallowing. “I can do it, too.”

 

Camila kept her fingers clamped tight around Lauren’s arm for the entire drive, two fingers feeling out a pulse. At first Lauren wasn’t sure if it was to comfort her or because the touch comforted Camila.

 

When she realized it was both Lauren turned on the radio and began to sing loudly. With a wobbly laugh, Camila followed.

 

She’d only been to the graveyard once, to see the casket lowered into the ground. Somehow she still remembered exactly which white marker was hers in a field of thousands of them, covering the ground like snowflakes.

 

The stone was like all the others. Camila dropped gracefully to her knees as soon as they stopped in front of it. She didn’t let go of Lauren’s hand, her arm stretched up at an odd angle with their fingers laced.

 

It wasn’t as meaningful or as meaningless as Lauren had once thought it would be, standing in front of her headstone. Mostly she thought the wind was too chilly, the rose’s thorns were sharp in her palm, her grandmother had been all kinds of awesome, Camila was holding her hand, and life was okay.

 

After a long silence Lauren realized Camila was waiting to be introduced.

 

“This is Camila,” Lauren said to the stone. She tilted her chin to Camila, smiling indulgently. “Camz, this is my grandma’s headstone.”

 

Camila reached out to stroke the curved top of the gravestone, friendly and warm. “Hello, Grandma.”

 

Lauren’s hand was clutched tight around the rose stem, thorns pricking her fingers. Gradually she released her fingers, dropping the rose onto the freshly mowed grass.

 

“Hi, Grandma.” Lauren repeated. “It’s been a long time.”

—–

Sometimes change was good.

 

It had taken Lauren years to deny that, only moments to see it, and far too long to accept it.

 

Life was constantly changing. If it hadn’t been changing it was because Lauren hadn’t been living a life, not really. Change meant losing things but it meant finding things, too. Finding things like Camila. It meant keeping those things close.

 

One moment Lauren had a comfortable life with nothing she needed, nothing she didn’t realize she needed, and then when she opened her eyes everything was different.

 

One night Lauren fell asleep alone and when she woke up, her soul mate was in her bed, arms wrapped tight around Lauren and a scrawny cat sleeping on her head.

 

One night she hated her neighbor and the next she was sitting in her living room and Camila was convincing her that yes, green eye shadow really did go with her skin tone, and all the people from Mars looked good in green.

 

One moment Lauren hated things, and the next they were all shining, vibrant and magic.

 

Camila was great at finding the things that shined. She was great at talking to Martians and she had great arms for clinging. She was great at being Camila.

 

Change was always good when its name was Camila.

—–

Camila and Lauren had a raccoon but it wasn’t a problem.

 

It was late in the evening and the two of them were cuddled close on the floor, using the couch as a backrest. They were reading, Camila with her book upside down and Lauren on the same page she’d been on an hour ago, because Camila’s upside down book seemed so much more interesting than her own.

 

Lauren’s ears perked at the noise, a familiar metallic clang. It was a sound she used to hope desperately for. She’d sit inside the same room she was in now, ears honed and alert as she waited for Camila to come and dig through the trash, all the while trying to convince herself she really didn’t care if Camila came or not.

 

And every time she’d heard that noise it had been a welcome rush of relief.

 

Lauren looked over, momentarily confused, and Camila was still sitting right there beside her.

 

“What’s making noise?” Camila asked as she stood and handed her book to Lauren. Lauren marked her page carefully before following Camila.

 

“I’m pretty sure it came from outside,” Lauren said. Camila was examining one of the paintings on the wall suspiciously. “Come on—or, no, stay here.”

 

Regardless of who was outside their house in the middle of the night, Camila would probably try to befriend them over a shared love of dumpster diving. Lauren wasn’t a fan of that idea so much.

 

Luckily, Camila was distracted with the painting and Lauren opened the door, a book still in her hand. She brandished it threateningly as she stepped out onto the front porch, prepared to fight off the source of the sound with her paperback.

 

The light above the garage illuminated the yard and Lauren saw where the sound had come from immediately.

 

Camila’s arms snaked over Lauren’s waist just as something dark and small darted away from the trashcan, zigzagging and disappearing behind a fence. A slow smile broke across Lauren’s face as Camila rested her chin on Lauren’s shoulder. Camila made an inquisitive noise, pressing herself so close against Lauren’s back they were practically one.

 

“Just a raccoon,” Lauren told her. They went back inside together.

 

The raccoon visited every night – just like Camila had, Lauren teased – and Camila quickly bonded with it even though she’d never gotten close to the creature. They had hobbies in common, Camila pointed out, and Lauren had to agree, brushing her thumb across Camila’s cheek.

 

This only encouraged Camila, and the raccoon quickly became a friend. When Lauren found herself mysteriously alone in the house one evening it was easy enough to guess, with a bang of the trashcan’s lid from outside, where Camila was.

 

When she opened the front door Lauren barely missed hitting Camila with it, just brushing the back of Camila’s shirt. She was huddled on the front step, her back to Lauren as she stared out into the dark intently, quiet and curious in the late hour.

 

Lauren left the door open, sitting down beside her.

 

“Hey, princess,” Lauren said, her fingers brushing Camila’s neck in a greeting. Camila hummed a response back, clearly captivated by what she was watching.

 

“Can you see it?” Lauren asked, squinting into the sunset. The raccoon was still unnamed. Camila wanted to name it ‘Camila’ as well but Lauren didn’t think the raccoon, as cool as it was, could do the namesake justice.

 

Camila’s breath caught in her throat, her gaze finally moving to Lauren. Her whole face lit up, bright in the growing darkness. “They’re soul mates,” she said, her excitement clear as she pointed. “Lauren, they’re soul mates. Can you see? I told you!”

 

Surprised, Lauren glanced over. In the dim light coming from the garage she could see one slinky, furry body curled over the edge of the trashcan. It took only a moment to see what Camila meant – right below the first raccoon was another dark form, identical in the darkness. They were looking through the trash together.

 

“That’s me and you,” Camila said.

 

It wasn’t a raccoon. It was two raccoons.

 

A part of Lauren, the new part she’d only discovered when she met Camila, was unbelievably happy for them.

 

They watched the two raccoons for long moments, the light reflecting over the quickly moving face of one and then the other, so nimble and fast Lauren couldn’t tell one from the other – but there were definitely two of them.

 

“I bet they’re looking for things that shine,” Lauren said, smiling fondly. She had a feeling the raccoon would soon be named ‘Camila’ after all, with its accompanying ‘Lauren.’ Lauren wouldn’t mind it.

 

Camila nodded vigorously, pressing closer against her side.

 

“Will they find what they’re looking for?” Lauren asked, leaning into Camila. She already knew the answer, but Lauren could spend the rest of her life hearing it from Camila’s lips. She planned to.

 

“Yes,” Camila told her, always so sure. She was warm and close and she smelled like home, sounded like home. Looked and felt and tasted like home when Lauren lingered over her, breathing her in. “They’ve already found it.”

 

The sun had set in purple and gray and the sky was dark now but Lauren could still see how everything shined. The stars sparkled in the darkness, the open trashcan and even the hood of Lauren’s car.

 

Lauren didn’t have to look at Camila to know how much she shined. Her eyes would be shimmering like they always were when Camila was happy with the world and everything in it, and especially happy with Lauren.

 

When Camila took Lauren’s hand and laced their fingers together her ring was shining in the darkness too.

 

Camila was right.

 

Everything shined.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THE END!!  
>   
> It was so great to have the chance to share this story with you guys… It’s one of those stories I always remember and love and I hope it’s now the same for you beautiful people. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH for reading “Through Her Eyes” and I hope it made you look at things around you in a different way, because remember that everything shines… Everything is beautiful in its own way, specially every single one of you ❤❤  
> 

**Author's Note:**

> Converted by the amazing:
> 
> http://iwill-look-after-you.tumblr.com/


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